Parent company of Wiggle / Chainreactioncycles in big financial trouble

[Konsi]

That's a very angry post dude, you need to calm down. I was not personally attacking you, why are you attacking me?

Who said I was just talking about retailers' margins? The whole industry from design to distribution is guilty of whacking up margins post covid. Now that sales have crashed on low and mid range kit there are warehouses full of stock and it's sadly the retailers that are feeling the strain. Although I bet manufacturers have warehouses full of stock as well.

Sad times, but the industry will need to look again at the price points it can sell at in sustainable volumes.

Angry? Nope. Just find this idea that poor little cyclists are being ripped off hilarious. It’s more often than not spouted by people who, if challenged on how much they charge for their services, would be monumentally offended.

It's clear you are angry. You are also correct, poor little cyclists won't be ripped off, they will just stop engaging, en masse. When that happens the industry loses sales and customers

Sad you are blaming customers for that.

Agree with you. The price increases are out of hand. To the point I refuse to pay full price for anything cycling related. And I'm not alone. I'm not sure why the other guy seems to be offended by people being mad about being price gouged. Maybe he owns a bike shop and can't sell his stock because he refuses to do sales. But something has to give if they want to sell off their inventory.

At the moment it seems that the brands are gouging the stores. Announcing a sales price (35% off in an example I witnessed last week) on the brand website, putting the price below the purchasing price for stores as recently as 6 weeks ago. No one is buying the bikes at the full price anymore, but if the shop honours the sales price, they loose money (as they paid the bikes when they were delivered from the brand)

[BikeTyson]

Angry? Nope. Just find this idea that poor little cyclists are being ripped off hilarious. It’s more often than not spouted by people who, if challenged on how much they charge for their services, would be monumentally offended.

It's clear you are angry. You are also correct, poor little cyclists won't be ripped off, they will just stop engaging, en masse. When that happens the industry loses sales and customers

Sad you are blaming customers for that.

Agree with you. The price increases are out of hand. To the point I refuse to pay full price for anything cycling related. And I'm not alone. I'm not sure why the other guy seems to be offended by people being mad about being price gouged. Maybe he owns a bike shop and can't sell his stock because he refuses to do sales. But something has to give if they want to sell off their inventory.

At the moment it seems that the brands are gouging the stores. Announcing a sales price (35% off in an example I witnessed last week) on the brand website, putting the price below the purchasing price for stores as recently as 6 weeks ago. No one is buying the bikes at the full price anymore, but if the shop honours the sales price, they loose money (as they paid the bikes when they were delivered from the brand)

Yea, I feel bad for the local bike shops. They can't compete with online retailers, or even their own brand like you said. Specialized or Trek will put on these sales and undercut their own LBS dealers. It's just a bad situation.

[chorus88]

It's clear you are angry. You are also correct, poor little cyclists won't be ripped off, they will just stop engaging, en masse. When that happens the industry loses sales and customers

Sad you are blaming customers for that.

Agree with you. The price increases are out of hand. To the point I refuse to pay full price for anything cycling related. And I'm not alone. I'm not sure why the other guy seems to be offended by people being mad about being price gouged. Maybe he owns a bike shop and can't sell his stock because he refuses to do sales. But something has to give if they want to sell off their inventory.

At the moment it seems that the brands are gouging the stores. Announcing a sales price (35% off in an example I witnessed last week) on the brand website, putting the price below the purchasing price for stores as recently as 6 weeks ago. No one is buying the bikes at the full price anymore, but if the shop honours the sales price, they loose money (as they paid the bikes when they were delivered from the brand)

Yea, I feel bad for the local bike shops. They can't compete with online retailers, or even their own brand like you said. Specialized or Trek will put on these sales and undercut their own LBS dealers. It's just a bad situation.

When I purchased my SL7, my LBS matched Specialized Canada's sale price.
I think Specialized Canada credits the difference to the LBS??

[Konsi]

Another brand starting with S doesn't. Once the LBS has the bike, they no longer consider it their problem

[Karvalo]

An example of what I'm talking about is Garmin and their most recent cycling computer refresh.

According to an email I got from a retailer today the MRSP of the newer 540 is £399.99 and for the older 530 is £259.99.

That's an increase of £140, or over 53%. That's quite frankly staggering for what is probably expected to be the highest selling Garmin cycling computer model. On top of this, it seems the 540 isn't really much of an upgrade to the 530.

A bit misleading there. The 540 Solar is £399, the 540 is £349. Pure inflation since the 530 was launched in 2019 at £259 would put it at £315 if it was launched today... so in real terms it's gone up in price by 11%,

Now if you're going to say 'but isn't inflation largely driven by corporate greed anyway?' I would have to agree, so let's make an allowance for that and call it 20%. Having had a long term lend of a 540 I would say it is a noticeably better unit. Far faster to get started and recalculate en-route, significantly more accurate GPS track under forest cover, better homescreen info etc. Would I buy one to replace the 530 for the sake of it? No. If I broke the 530 would I pay more to get a 540 replacement? Probably.

[Nickldn]

An example of what I'm talking about is Garmin and their most recent cycling computer refresh.

According to an email I got from a retailer today the MRSP of the newer 540 is £399.99 and for the older 530 is £259.99.

That's an increase of £140, or over 53%. That's quite frankly staggering for what is probably expected to be the highest selling Garmin cycling computer model. On top of this, it seems the 540 isn't really much of an upgrade to the 530.

A bit misleading there. The 540 Solar is £399, the 540 is £349. Pure inflation since the 530 was launched in 2019 at £259 would put it at £315 if it was launched today... so in real terms it's gone up in price by 11%,

Now if you're going to say 'but isn't inflation largely driven by corporate greed anyway?' I would have to agree, so let's make an allowance for that and call it 20%. Having had a long term lend of a 540 I would say it is a noticeably better unit. Far faster to get started and recalculate en-route, significantly more accurate GPS track under forest cover, better homescreen info etc. Would I buy one to replace the 530 for the sake of it? No. If I broke the 530 would I pay more to get a 540 replacement? Probably.

Sadly I doubt this price rise has much to do with inflation, or slightly improved functionality/speed of operation. Likely it's all to do with the lack of competiton in the cycling computer space and of course what companies think they can get away with charging cyclists.

As for the solar range, the additional production costs are more than likely quite negligible, so the £50 increase in retail price compared to the ordinary model is even more egregious. If the market was more competitive Garmin would have been forced to innovative and launch the solar model at a 530 price level, but the competition have all failed to develop competitive products leaving Garmin as king of the hill (or in this case bike computer mount).

[Karvalo]

If the market was more competitive Garmin would have been forced to innovative and launch the solar model at a 530 price level, but the competition have all failed to develop competitive products leaving Garmin as king of the hill (or in this case bike computer mount).

Since several companies are trying to compete with Garmin, would this not imply that it is actually very difficult to undercut Garmin's price for a comparably featured unit? If it does, would it not further imply that Garmin' price is somewhere in a reasonably fair range?

[bobones]

If the market was more competitive Garmin would have been forced to innovative and launch the solar model at a 530 price level, but the competition have all failed to develop competitive products leaving Garmin as king of the hill (or in this case bike computer mount).

Since several companies are trying to compete with Garmin, would this not imply that it is actually very difficult to undercut Garmin's price for a comparably featured unit? If it does, would it not further imply that Garmin' price is somewhere in a reasonably fair range?

Indeed. You've got Wahoo, Hammerhead, Bryton, Magene and others in this space. However, Garmin still makes the best products and has great customer support (in the UK anyway), so £399 for an Edge 840 (today's online price) is a good deal in my book.

There are plenty of other companies more deserving of price gouging criticism than Garmin.

Anyway, looks like Wiggle is now finally dead. I've bought loads of good stuff from them over the years and will miss their in-house brands like Prime, Lifeline, DHB, Vitus etc. A sad day indeed.

https://www.wiggle.com/

[Flasher]

Anyway, looks like Wiggle is now finally dead. I've bought loads of good stuff from them over the years and will miss their in-house brands like Prime, Lifeline, DHB, Vitus etc. A sad day indeed.

https://www.wiggle.com/

Very sad to see it go, was my go to for many years, and before that when it was Butlers my old LBS when I was growing up in Portsmouth

[RDY]

Kona now circling the toilet bowl. In their case I think it's unlikely they'll be purchased as a going concern. I'd imagine asset and brand sale.

In other news Trek have closed their Italian subsidiary completely.

No updates yet on BMC's difficulties.

Edit: forgot to mention potential prelude to hostile takeover at Scott.