General Cycling Discussion - Bicycle markup

What are typical mark-ups on new bicycle- that is what percentage of msrp is the wholesale price, and does it vary much from line to line, or from high end to low end within lines?

Bike markup varies; it's never very high, it's much lower than "keystone;" which means the retail price is double the wholesale price.
Bicycles are almost a loss leader to drive other sales. Generally, the better the assembly job a bike store does the less they'll make on the bike. Almost all out-of-the-box bikes need two hours of assembly work to function really well; they're pretty raw regardless of the brand. No apologies--if you try to beat the price on a bike down, you're a "verbal shoplifter" and you deserve bad service and bad assembly. Good stores put more into bike assemblies and after-sale service than they get back out. They survive by selling parts, accessories, and service. Repeat: You deserve a bad experience if you bargain on the price of the bike, the dealer really doesn't have the room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is not much bargaining room witha bike, we would rather bargin on the accesories to go with it.
Our store offer a year of free adjustment and some customers take more than full advantage of it , dropping their bike off every couple of weeks even when there are no issues with it, but since it still gets written up(Repair tickets are about 20 cents.) and checked over by the end of the year you are in the hole on that bike.
Bike shops also don't get a kick back from the distibutor like an auto dealer will.
I don't mind if someone wants to try and bargin, but the real problem is most people don't know how.
Watch "Life of Brian" for the sheckle scene where he tries to buy a beard, bargaining is more like that.
Bargaining is not "$2000, tell you what I will give you $500" or "What kind of deal will you give me?" If you ask straight " Will you knock off $50?" or "How about throwing in a helmet?" That will work much better.
There are few places you can bargain anymore. I can't go to the grocery store and offer them 60 cents ona 65 cent can of peas or go to the dentist and try to get him to throw in the X-rays for 10% off. But for some reason this still persists here in the shop.

In most shops I have worked in there is only around 30% mark up on bikes. So good shops who make sure the bikes get quality build only make a small profit on bikes.

margins are pretty low on bikes. i think 20% is pretty much the average on high-end bikes. the margin is much, much higher at the low-end. a bike shop might make as much from the sale of an entry-level mtb as from a high-end road bike. the difference is that the guy who buys the roadies will also buy the $150 helmet, the $200 pedals, the $90 jersey, $100 shorts, and will be in the shop again in five months for a pair of $50 tires -- all of which carry mich higher margins than the actual bike.

the best way to negotiate when buying a bike is not to get a cut on the price of the bike, but to haggle over the prices of all the other little things...

Originally posted by Rev.Chuck
There are few places you can bargain anymore. I can't go to the grocery store and offer them 60 cents ona 65 cent can of peas or go to the dentist and try to get him to throw in the X-rays for 10% off. But for some reason this still persists here in the shop.

You may not like negotiating, but if you do not there is a simple answer: offer a price and stick to it. I don't force anyone to negotiate with me, but no one can force me to limit myself to the sticker price. Oddly enough I have found that I can negotiate many apparently fixed prices. One key is knowing a lot about the market. I find that many folks in many walks of life will offer bargains if only I pay attention to their needs. The best buys can be had on leftover or end-of season items, which were not appealing for reasons which don't affect me. In this case an exccellent example would be color of a bike. If you had a two year old unsold new bike in a ridiculous color, but it met my needs, I would try to offer you dealer cost. You would be free to accept my money and buy new stok which would turnover twiice or three times in season. You would be better off and so would I.

Another time to do some bargaining is when the weather does not cooperate. For example if we have a warm ski season, the shop may be overstocked. I do the shop a favor by reducing your inventory and the shop does me one by selling at a discount. this is not "verbal shoplifting". It is simply half of the buy low sell high formula which occurs in free markets.

I don't expect you to sell me a high demand item below or even at msrp. You should not expect to sell me a low demand item at msrp. Either way- it is up to you to decide what price you will accept, just as it is up to me to decie what price I might pay. There is no problem if you say no- I still have money in my wallet and you still have unsold stock.

the shop i worked at had a lower mark up it was about 25% give or take on the bike. we'd have more deals on accesories like said before because u can get them to buy 100 dollars worth of accesories easier then getting them to buy a 100 dollar more bike. thats what i experianced atleast.