Continental price hike comming to the USA?

[windscreen]

From yesterday's press release on their new hire to manage North American bicycle tires:

"It's an exciting time to partner with Continental Bicycle as we are launching our first comprehensive MAP policy in December and joining forces with QBP to enhance our service to retailers."

Friggin' minimum advertised pricing. I wish we'd ban that in the US, like Europe has. It's very anti-competitive and just screws over the consumer, in my opinion.

-Steve

[windscreen]

URL to the presser:
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/announc ... e-americas

[TobinHatesYou]

The EU probably does a better job protecting small businesses in other ways where a MAP policy isn't necessary. Here in the US, local bike shops have to pay a higher vendor price for Schwalbe, Continental, etc. tires than what EU shops, Amazon and other gray market sources sell to consumers for. In a free market, US-based LBS would need to buy up all these tires from Bike24, bike-discount, etc. and resell them.

[pushpush]

Don't most vendors circumvent this by saying things like "Add to cart to view the final price" ???

[TobinHatesYou]

Don't most vendors circumvent this by saying things like "Add to cart to view the final price" ???

Yes, but the dealer price for a GP5K S TR was like $72 on Highway Two. It's probably about the same on QBP. You’re basically never going to see amazing prices on Conti or Schwalbe tires in the US. Vittoria and Pirelli a lot more likely. Some places like Bike Closet are doing what I mentioned above and clearing out stock from less-than-official channels.

[warthog101]

Time to stop buying em then.
I dont even look at them anymore, just too expensive to bother.

[windscreen]

Yes, but the dealer price for a GP5K S TR was like $72 on Highway Two. It's probably about the same on QBP. You’re basically never going to see amazing prices on Conti or Schwalbe tires in the US. Vittoria and Pirelli a lot more likely. Some places like Bike Closet are doing what I mentioned above and clearing out stock from less-than-official channels.

That would explain why two years ago I could buy S TR on Lordgun and ship them to the US for less than I could buy them from any US source. And then this summer, Bike Closet had a great deal on 28 mm TT TR.

Real prices with MAP seem to depend on how strongly the OEM writes and enforces policies. Garmin and SRAM are pretty strict enforcers, and you never see deals. SRAM even forbids retailers from shipping into the US from outside.

-Steve

[satanas]

SRAM (and Shimano, etc) basically try to forbid anyone from shipping anything internationally, within continental Europe excepted. IMO this just makes things harder - or impossible - to get, and generates traffic for places like eBay and Aliexpress.

[Wildh]

Starbike is probably the cheapest place to buy them. Even at cost in the US they can be less.

[froze]

From yesterday's press release on their new hire to manage North American bicycle tires:

"It's an exciting time to partner with Continental Bicycle as we are launching our first comprehensive MAP policy in December and joining forces with QBP to enhance our service to retailers."

Friggin' minimum advertised pricing. I wish we'd ban that in the US, like Europe has. It's very anti-competitive and just screws over the consumer, in my opinion.

-Steve

I agree with you 1000%! They do this crap with minimum advertising pricing because manufactures think Americans are wealthy and they can afford, essentially what we're doing by paying more is subsidizing Europe for their tires, but we're rich so we don't care...

They do the same thing with appliances, here we get a 1-year warranty, Europe gets a 7-year warranty, here our appliances last an average of 5 to 9 years, in Europe, they'll last over 25 years, but you see, we can afford to buy new appliances all the time because we're the wealthy people.

[jdms2k]

I'm going to keep buying from Europe. A new set of GP5000 S TRs were delivered today. Much better pricing than any US retailer.

[matcav]

From yesterday's press release on their new hire to manage North American bicycle tires:

"It's an exciting time to partner with Continental Bicycle as we are launching our first comprehensive MAP policy in December and joining forces with QBP to enhance our service to retailers."

Friggin' minimum advertised pricing. I wish we'd ban that in the US, like Europe has. It's very anti-competitive and just screws over the consumer, in my opinion.

-Steve

I agree with you 1000%! They do this crap with minimum advertising pricing because manufactures think Americans are wealthy and they can afford, essentially what we're doing by paying more is subsidizing Europe for their tires, but we're rich so we don't care...

They do the same thing with appliances, here we get a 1-year warranty, Europe gets a 7-year warranty, here our appliances last an average of 5 to 9 years, in Europe, they'll last over 25 years, but you see, we can afford to buy new appliances all the time because we're the wealthy people.

Being a European who moved to the US, I can see how many things here are more expensive just because Americans have more disposable income - which is definitely true. Paying over 100$ for a single GP5000 made me jump out of my shoes the first time I've seen it.

Appliances tho are a different thing. Many models here are just poor quality (i.e., GE stuff) and often abused & not well maintained as in Europe.

[proffate]

Counterpoint, I've been buying conti road tires for over ten years at the same price point the whole time, up to and including today. Inflation appears to be 0.0% for this product.

[BigBoyND]

They do the same thing with appliances, here we get a 1-year warranty, Europe gets a 7-year warranty, here our appliances last an average of 5 to 9 years, in Europe, they'll last over 25 years, but you see, we can afford to buy new appliances all the time because we're the wealthy people.

A lot of the warranty differences come from regulations designed to protect consumers in EU.

[froze]

They do the same thing with appliances, here we get a 1-year warranty, Europe gets a 7-year warranty, here our appliances last an average of 5 to 9 years, in Europe, they'll last over 25 years, but you see, we can afford to buy new appliances all the time because we're the wealthy people.

A lot of the warranty differences come from regulations designed to protect consumers in EU.

That is absolutely correct, our government doesn't care about protecting consumers from crappy appliances or other crappy consumer products.

By the way, interesting side note. We bought a house some years back that was built in 1921, the original owner of the house installed Hunter fans in all the rooms shortly after they moved into it. Those fans were still in the house when we bought it 70 years later and they all ran without making any noise! How long do modern fans last today? Maybe 5 years than they start to make a racket or just stop running one day. Those old fans did require the oil to be checked and refilled as needed, but we were still able to buy the oil from Hunter, it was some sort of 10-weight non-detergent oil, it wasn't motor oil because back in those days they didn't use 10 weight in cars, so not sure what it was, maybe machining oil? it came in a tube, not a can. Those fans were extremely heavy too unlike the modern marvels we have today. We also know a lady who inherited her grandma's 1948 International fridge, it still runs today, it has never needed any repair other than seals, and it runs very quietly. It has been in constant use all those 75 years except when they had to move it, or the power went out; it currently sits in the garage running.