Just ordered some spare brake pads thought I'd add a spare chain to qualify for free delivery. Turns out it's no longer £30 it's £60 !!!! Blimey! More than made up for with the price of the bits but that came as a shock !
BikepartsUK are still anything over £20 but this time they couldn't compete which is unusual
Oh, that's gone up more than a bit, used to be £20 iirc and increased to either £30 or £40 when I last ordered some bits close to a year ago.
Yeh noticed this recently too it’s actually stopped me buying much from them now as I often don’t buy over around 30 quid so I just get it elsewhere to avoid the postage costs now
What’s a first class stamp these days, £1.65? I sympathise but can’t be much margin on small orders to make up for the postage costs, so can see why Merlin et al are increasing thresholds. I’ve seen it with companies outside of cycling too, all seem to be £50 or more
Normally, I've always played around with my basket to get just over a toal that qualifies for a activating a £5+ discount voucher from my account history, using points collected from purchases. Which means a £75+ basket.
IIRC, one purchase within every 12 months keeps your ongoing points total alive and not junked.
Look under "loyalty information" at https://www.merlincycles.com/account/
I've had a basket sitting at £55 for about three weeks now.
@aidy see if you ordered a pair of. the brake pads I've ordered you'd be 5p short of free postage ?
Yeah. I've often wished shops had a "just round up the basket to the threshold" option, rather than having to piss about finding something for 5p to save £5 or whatever on postage.
@aidy that's how you end up with a good stock of oil or gear cables !
I bought a workshop box of 100 gear cables years ago, also a workshop bottle of chain lube (3.8l) - I'm not getting through either of them any time soon (especially since I've started waxing chains).
I'm also good for bar end plugs, bar tape, headset spacers, puncture repair kits, cable ferrules.
Free postage definitely has an effect on shopping behaviour but things have thankfully moved on from the likes of Amazon and CRC having no threshold as a tactic to takeover the market.
I think our threshold is £40 now, shipping and pick and pack prices have gone up a lot in recent years. A small parcel (anything over 25mm tall) on tracked 48 is now over £5 cost including pic and pack. And brexit has made the eu one of the most expensive places to ship to in the world despite being close to us.
Charlie the Bikemonger used to list Magic Beans for just this purpose.