Paul Barnard

I am confident that I am an outlier on this. I have a new MTB frame up in my attic. I have been surfing the net looking for all the parts to build it. At this point it looks like it is going to be a Shimano free bike. I guess Shimano is in a position that they don't have to care about that.

kingston 

My misunderstanding. I thought you were saying that there are lots of companies who operate a global business the same way Shimano does. I'm sure there must be others, but I don't know of any.

CliffordK

The video industry has been interesting. I think it started with tapes and some countries running at 60 HZ, and others at 50 HZ.

But, most DVD and Blu-Ray discs sold have an embedded country code, and will not play in other countries.

So, if you purchase a big Blockbuster movie from the UK or Australia, it won't play on 99% of the video players in the USA.

Unfortunately, they did the same thing for locally produced videos, so if you wish to buy a small locally produced/distributed film or TV show, you're out of luck. Likewise, buying foreign language films can be problematic.

Many electronic media distribution companies are doing the same, so find some local TV show that you're interested in, distributed in another country, and you'll get your internet access blocked to the distributor's website.

The car industry has government imposed restrictions, blocking that couple of percent of "grey market" vehicles from coming in.

It may be that 40 years ago, as the governments started introducing SMOG and Safety standards, it made sense. But, now, much less so, as European and Japanese safety standards may be as good, or better than our own.

Many industries have struggled with price-fixing and Minimum Advertised Prices. And, right now the bike industry is winning over reason.

CliffordK

Precisely. The top of the line parts may get carbon fiber and titanium.

The middle line parts may get molded plastic covered with carbon fiber, and stainless.

The bottom of the line may get chromed (or painted) steel, and molded plastic.

Features are also frequently left out of the lower model components, such as multi-shifts.

I've found most of Shimano's bearing races (cups) tend to be good, but their cones on lower model parts are definitely second-rate.

BirdsBikeBinocs

Okay. I get it. And yes, Tiagra always "looked" sort of normal as compared to those balloon heads but now, Tiagra is the fugley look.

Does anyone other than me think that it seems the 2019 bikes with a Tiagra groupset have gone up in price. The OP mentions it too. I could be wrong. Seems the bikes I'd been looking at have jumped up in price by a hundred bucks or so. Could be tariffs I guess.??

unterhausen

Technical books. There was a math book I sold and then decided I wanted a copy. It was well over $100. I asked one of the Indian grad students to buy it for me in India when they visited their parents and it was a couple of dollars. There have been lawsuits over people importing those foreign copies.

There is no anti-trust issue involved in Shimano. For one thing, someone is violating a contract they had with Shimano, namely the U.K. shops. And Shimano is merely enforcing that. But there also is no problem with it absent that, price fixing has been declared legal by the supreme court as long as there are multiple brands available.

Rajflyboy

TimothyH

Assos.

drlogik 

Shimano is on my 5hitlist too but for another reason. I bought a really really nice Shimano fishing reel about 10 years ago. I used it twice and then we packed up and moved and it got lost in the move. I found it when packing for another move two years ago. This virtually a brand new reel but it is 10 years old. I went out fishing with it and the crank stopped and "click". A small part broke inside the reel. I called Shimano and they won't even look at it. It's "too old, and we don't have parts". Don't have parts.....

I take the reel apart and figure out it's a teeny tiny little part on the worm drive that broke. I search and search and nobody has this part. Now I have a $300 spinning reel that is non-operational. I have 40 year old D.A.M. Quick spin reels that are still going strong. I have 50 year old Zebco reels that are still working. The 10 year old Shimano Rolls Royce model? Nope.

On a side note, this reel is WAAAAYY too complicated for a spinning reel. There are dozens of little plastic parts inside this reel. Every one of them fragile. I should have known, a reel that smooth isn't rugged and won't last, lesson learned. The Quick reels? maybe 12 parts total, made in Germany and bullet proof. That's why even 50 year old Quick reels command decent money on eBay, they last forever.

I'm done with Shimano.


-

CliffordK

Perhaps the idea is to stimulate more competition by making their components inaccessible to small businesses and infuriating customers.

TimothyH

Don't forget Shimano's wheels fraud.

They introduced the C40 and C60 wheels, shipped older C35's and C50's, then changed all the documentation overnight to reflect the specs of the old product.

99% of the reviewers out there towed the line and removed references to the original C60 specs from their press releases and pre-release reviews.


-Tim-

livedarklions

The big difference is that Shimano's market share is so high that price fixing in this manner may be an antitrust violation. SRAM is tiny by comparison.

livedarklions

New York and California have their own antitrust laws, and minimum price agreements are extremely problematic in those. Also, EU antitrust tends to be tougher.

With a 70-80% market share, this is something they need to be careful about.

radroad

LOL so many haters.

Shimano rules!

CliffordK

Hmmm...

There are a couple of things that are problematic.

Does Shimano make deals with major manufacturers like Trek/Giant/Cannondale/etc... to exclusively build bikes with Shimano components to exclude other manufacturers?

They have given a lot of power to regional distributorships. Who really is Shimano USA?

What happens when they tell a small bike shop that they MUST buy components from Shimano USA rather than a European wholesaler, or even a European reseller?

What if Shimano USA refuses to sell components to a business for one reason or another?



And, now, say that Wholesale vendor #1 has no MAP, and Wholesale vendor #2 has higher prices and a MAP... and forcing businesses to use that Wholesale vendor #2 with the MAP and higher prices?

It does start sounding a lot like a monopoly, at least at the level where Shimano USA is flexing their muscles.

prj71

????
https://www.jensonusa.com/search?q=shimano+crankset

Never buy Shimano components from a bike shop. They force the shops to sell at a minimum advertised price. Online or eBay you can find them for roughly 30% less sometimes 50% less. I recently purchased an XT derailleur and Shimano Saint shifter for my mountain bike from an online retailer for almost 50% less than retail.

https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/infor...-pro-only.html

indyfabz

1. In order to engage in "price fixing," as that term has legal meaning, you need the action of at least two competitors. Shimano cannot engage in price fixing on its own and with respect to its own products.

2. Market share alone is not sufficient evidence of monopoly power, which has a specific legal definition.

3. Not all monopolies are unlawful.

prj71

If I was a bike shop I'd sell Shimano parts less than the minimum advertised price. It's not like someone would actually complain about paying less right?

And it's not like there are Shimano police out there running around and checking. Shimano makes nice stuff...but eff their MAP crap.

AlmostTrick

Maybe "Okay I've had it...I am boycotting considering Shimano parts." would have been more accurate.

livedarklions

NY and California law is different on #1 .
Market share is not by itself determinitive, but as your market share increases, other factors get more scrutiny.
The crime and civil offense is actually monopolization, not owning a monopoly. There are markets that are considered natural monopolies. I don't think bike components is likely one of those.

I'm not saying it's a slam-dunk, but it also shouldn't be dismissed as a possibility out of hand. There's a lot of people (bike producers and dealers/resellers) who are being locked out of the market who are going to have a huge incentive to bring actions. The argument is basically that Shimano suppresses competition between resellers in order to maintain higher prices. That argument is currently not great with the US Supreme Court, but might be really effective in other jurisdictions, and also Congress could change the Sherman Act at some time if we end up with, say, a President Warren.

We could probably do this all day, but this is going to be my last post on the subject because it's getting a bit too far into the legal/political weeds, and I don't really think anyone wants to read more of a brief on the topic here.

base2 

So, the policy unilaterally dictated by Shimano essentially says that they believe the value of their products shall not be subject to the forces of free market capitalism. And that they will punish any retailer that doesn't play along...What a "D"-move.

Moving on.
The Jenson link was addressed by around post 4 or 5 or so. I stated that I missed the listing. It wasn't alphabetical when I searched" drivetrain>>chainsets" sort by brand. In any case maybe listing the results here will make my irritation clear.

XTR FC-9020 Black, Proprietary holes, no rings $300
XTR FC-9000 Black, Proprietary holes, no rings, $300
XT FC- 8000 Black, Proprietary holes, 1 with rings, 1 without, both $90, 1 boost, $115
SLX FC-M7000 Black, Proprietary holes, 2 with rings, 2 boost, a single & a double of each $80-$100
Acera FC-M361 Black, triple.
Altus FC-M311 Black, triple
ZEE FC-640, Black, single, Steel heavy (850 grams) $100
ZEE FC-645 Black, 83mm axle, Steel, heavy

See anything in common? Only black. Ring compatibility with market available spares is diminished, MSRP of items is not consistant with product merit, production cost or market demand.

Corporate control to limit consumer choice and free market forces is by definition a monopolistic behavior. Americans are being taken to the cleaners.

kingston 

I have no problem with minimum resale price maintenance (RPM) agreements between manufacturers and retailers and don’t really care what some judges in two of the least free states in the country think is or isn't legal. The problem I have with Shimano is that they are incompetent. They are trying to execute different pricing strategies in the US and Europe, which clearly doesn't work in a global economy. Then when it fails, they decide to go after the retailers Instead of addressing their own flawed pricing strategy.

My guess is that Shimano makes at least ten times more on OEM parts in the US than what they make on spare parts, so the profit-maximizing pricing strategy for them in the US is to keep the OEM prices as low as possible for the big American bike manufacturers and to keep the spare parts price as high as possible which 1) makes more money when Americans buy replacement parts 2) creates a financial incentive for Americans to buy new bikes instead of upgrading the ones they already have. If this were the only thing going on, I wouldn't have a problem with it, even with minimum RPM agreements.

In Europe I guess the dynamic is different with more smaller bike manufacturers and apparently a higher proportion of sales volume coming from spare parts. To maximize profits in Europe, Shimano keeps the OEM prices a little higher and the spare parts prices a little lower. Again, perfectly acceptable pricing strategy in isolation.

In a global economy, it is impossible to execute these two different pricing strategies simultaneously in the absence of government regulation. Since the bicycle spare parts market is unregulated, Shimano is predictably failing to execute this geographically segmented pricing strategy. So instead of fixing their flawed strategy, they decide to threaten British retailers so they stop shipping parts to Americans and American retailers so they stop trying to compete with the British. It’s a level of management incompetence that I can't support. There are a few companies in the world that I have no choice but to do business with, and Shimano isn't one of them, so until they figure this out, I'm done with Shimano. Technical books and foreign DVD’s were already on the list of things I don't buy, so I won’t need to add them. I'm not convinced Assos does anything I object to other than make clothes I would never buy. They certainly don't operate the same way Shimano does.

livedarklions

Yes, but if you're Shimano, you'd be rather foolish not to note that those two states have very big economies by themselves (way larger than most countries), and it's even harder to treat those states differently from the rest of the U.S. than it is to treat different countries' markets differently, which was the point of your post. As a practical matter, if they can't enforce minimum price agreements in California, they won;'t be able to do so in the U.S. as a whole without sacrificing doing business in California.

I'll ignore the nonsense about "least free states" because this isn't a political forum.

kingston 

Shimano is rather foolish. That's why I don't buy their products anymore. As I said, I couldn't care less about what the regulators think or do. Shimano is the epitome of competence by comparison.

MattTheHat 

I was looking at the Argon18 Dark Matter recently. They have two models: a SRAM Force 1X and a Shimano 105 2X. The SRAM model is exactly $1000 more expensive. The other components seem almost identical. Interesting, I says to myself. Maybe SRAM Force is a higher quality build set. So I went to price build sets at one online retailer. An Ultegra build set costs exactly $100 more than the 105. Cost difference on the online retailer for a 105 vs Force 1 build set is $750.

Maybe the SRAM Force is a better build set than the Ultegra, I don't know. I do know that I'd want the 2X model any way, but even if I didn't, I couldn't possibly justify the extra $750-1000 cost for a SRAM set up.

I've got nothing against SRAM and if pricing were close and their 2X model was available on a bike I liked, I'd certainly consider purchasing it. I just don't personally see any value benefit for the cost difference.

-Matt