fietsbob

3 prices: Order millions, order a carton sized quantity or order just one...

greatscott

You know what's wrong with circles? same thing like having an ejection seat on a helicopter, or an ovulating Grandmother, or rubber lips on a Woodpecker, or windshield wiper on a Goats arse, or, well I think you get the idea.

Sy Reene

I'm not certain Shimano (japan) will make any more profit. I think possible the extra money is just going to prop up an expensive distribution model with more layers of folks wetting their beaks.

kingston 

Oh, now I get it. Thanks for the clarification.

Maelochs

Considering how long the stuff lasts .... I'd still buy Shimano. I have enough bikes already, and I don't need to upgrade any of them .... got it all done while the stuff was cheaper.

The only upgrade I'd consider would be DI2 .... and before too long I will be able to get cheap Bikes Direct bikes with the right gear on it.

CliffordK

Soon we'll see more holes in Shimano's protectionist wall than Swiss Cheese.

For my personal use, I've been happy enough with barely used parts which seem to still hit below what the UK prices used to be.

ColonelSanders

If one buys a bike with Shimano parts on it and after a while they need/want to replace the chain or the cassette or the crank or the braking system or the cables need replacing, in the past one might have chosen a Shimano option that they purchased the parts for it online.

Now the choice one makes is to pay twice as much for parts at the LBS, or they buy online, non-Shimano components that won't have any compatibility issues(despite your spurious claims that they would).

Why are you struggling to grasp the very basic thing I have been stating here?

Dave Mayer

Good approach - in theory. But my local bike shop owner is fully aware of the Shimano action, and thinks it is fantastic; long overdue. He also thinks the value of his entire shop inventory has now increased, Shimano or otherwise. He knows the customer options to bypass the proper supply chain have been severed.

As far as used parts, prices will increase here as well, due to competition from frugal cyclists like you and I.

Another effect: so I saw a decent looking Shimano gruppo for sale on Craigslist. But they were asking more than what would be a Chain Reaction price for new. So 3 months ago, I would have emailed them the link, and asked them to temper (lower) their price expectations, and we could make a deal. This is no longer possible, as their opportunity cost has doubled (now North American retail).

So all the way down the food chain, from the latest Dura-Ace Di2, to mangled, low-end derailleurs at bike Co-ops, the price of all components will jump. Mission accomplished. I guessing that if the price of replacement parts has jumped, so can the price of new componentry, as customers will be faced with big repair bills on 5-year old bikes. Again, mission accomplished; out with the old, and in with the new.

I'm sitting on a mountain of bike parts, so I suppose I should be happy here, but I'm not.

Maelochs

This is capitalism. Charge what the customer can afford. We will still find ways to keep our bikes running---or, I will. I like riding, so i will find ways to keep riding.

We had a good deal, we benefited. We will no longer have access to the good deal. We will not therefore suffer. We will be fine.

If no one buys Shimano replacements, Shimano will or will not address its prices. Microshift will or will not be more popular. Cheap Chinese Shimano knock-offs will crop up, and some will be good enough to buy. Life, and cycling, will go on.

CliffordK

Hmmm

Let me check E-Bay. New Parts, large sellers.

HG-73 chain. $2.50 cheaper than the last time I stocked up. No guarantees, of course, that counterfeits aren't hitting the market.

BR-6800, $69.20. About what I've paid in the past. Of course there is a new version out.

CS-R8000 11-28, $54.95... $49.99 from Jenson USA.

We may be entering an era where the parts will be available at reasonable prices, but one will have to pick them up piecemeal. The real winners will be the shipping companies. No longer will customers get big boxes, but rather a bunch of small boxes.

Sy Reene

FIFY. I know this is a Shimano thread, but why do we have the same pricing disparities with lots of companies (some of them US based -- eg SRAM, Speedplay, Thomson)?

CliffordK

Hmmm...

I seem to be finding quite a few Shimano and SRAM products up on the Merlin website.

Not necessarily bottom of the line prices, but they're up there. I didn't actually place a new order, but I seem to be able to get stuff into my shopping cart.

https://www.merlincycles.com

Did they somehow miss the dragnets?

https://www.bike-discount.de

Also seems to list Shimano parts. One can see SRAM parts, but not put them in the cart.

This will undoubtedly be a leaky process trying to plug all the holes.

Marcus_Ti

No...capitalism is patent everything and drive your competitors out of business by making it impossible for them to sell their products, by limiting consumer choice.

Say for example SRAM and their MAP=MSRP, and geolocation/market lockdown....And then SRAM had the nerve to claim they were doing everyone a favor. Shimano can do what they want...all their competitors do just as bad or worse. So it isn't like the consumer really has a choice to support a better company, ethically.

Supply demand and market explanations are...well...naive.

CliffordK

We have a "strong dollar".

I have thought that for some time prices seem to reflect parity between the US Dollar and the GB Pound and EU Euro.

$1 = £1 = 1€ But, of course the international markets don't look at it that way. Also taxes really throw currency equivalencies around a lot.

Keep in mind you're not looking at prices of US manufacturers, but US branded foreign made products.



For domestic products:

Paul, Rolf, PhilWood, Velocity (formerly Australian), White Industries, etc?

I'm having troubles finding them on any international websites. Perhaps that is one of our problems. Far more imports than exports.

Interesting, White Industries now is adding a 4% Tariff Surcharge to all of their products due to increased costs of domestic raw materials.

Tariff - White Industries

Maelochs

I didn't say "Supply and Demand." I said, "Charge what the market will bear." The phrase "caveat emptor" has been around a lot longer than Adam Smith's invisible hand.

And if ethics is that big an issue, simply don't buy anything from any of the big bike parts manufacturers. That Is your option. if you are so ethically offended, stop riding your bike ... or make your own parts. With a little help from a CNC machine shop and a 3D-printer you ought to be able to duplicate most of what you need.

We act like we have some sort of "right" to have bike parts made available to us at a price we find pleasing. I have read the Constitution pretty thoroughly. If there is an article which mentions 'brifters" or "electronic shifting' I missed it.

Shimano found a way to make more money. We would have to pay that money. We don't want to.

The option is to pay of not.

The funniest part is ... how often does anybody need to buy a new group set? I have six road bikes. I do not "need" to build more. If i choose to .... then I have to pay for that. Nothing unfair there.

If I choose to upgrade one of those bikes, and it costs me a few hundred dollars more to day than it would have last year .... I either pass, or I save up another couple hundred dollars. Not a huge deal.

Whatever.

Sy Reene

For at least Thomson, you can google for Thomson Factory Tour Video.. they make most of the stems and seatposts I think in Macon Georgia. But you'll pay 20% more for that stem from an LBS in Atlanta, than to get it shipped to you from the UK (where it had to be shipped to from Georgia).

For foreign country manufactured goods.. if we have a strong dollar, then US companies are paying for the labor and manufacturing with that strong dollar, aren't they?

Marcus_Ti

I'm not that surprised. The people who are able to make it and stay in business domestically (making their wares--domestically) are small operations making a high-tier product. White, Onyx, Paul and so on. They're not big enough to be able to worry (or want to worry) about international distribution and all the byzantine business involved with it.

I'm not sure Speedplay even makes their toys here. SRAM bought out Rockshox, Avid, and Truvativ, and Zipp--which has small facilities making stuff, but AFAIK all actual SRAM parts are not made domestically all their boxes last I knew had "Made in Taiwan" on them.

SRAM adopted Speedplay's MAP=MSRP practice and forbid sales pricing or cross-region sales.

Sy Reene

Sounds reasonable... until you realize that a pair of eg. T11 Hubs weighs about 12 ozs. The 4% 'surcharge' equates to about $20. the cost per lb of the raw materials (aluminum 6061) is about $1/lb. A 28% increase means that alloy used to cost $.80/lb. So the additional raw material (even allowing for the hubs not weighing a full lb) cost would be about $.20. $.20 vs. $20 ?

Maelochs

Actually, if White is buying billets, most of what it buys is getting scraped or recycled after it is ground away. The weight of the finished product has nothing to do with the weight of the material that went into the piece. (Not sure how much aluminum can be recovered after milling, due to contamination. Maybe a lot, maybe not. Not sure how much it costs to actually recover the scrap and clean it enough to recast.)

But hey .... don't like the price, buy elsewhere.

Personally, I like how the company is up-front about the increase, and also suggests that the increase can be revoked should the tariff be removed. That is pretty ballsy, because everyone who shops there will remember that ... so they are sort of obligated. if they had merely raised prices four percent nobody would have noticed much, and no one would have any expectation that prices would drop later.

CliffordK

Scrap metal may be $0.50 a pound, but when I've bought new metal, it seems to cost a heck of a lot more than that.

No doubt the company is able to resell their scrap.

Is a hub being milled out of say 4" of 2 1/2" round stock? Plus the axles, nuts, bearings, and everything else.

I'm not surprised that a 28% increase in raw materials prices equates to about a 4% wholesale/retail parts increase.

And that a tariff on international products increases the cost of domestic materials.

Of course they could save a lot on materials by designing some kind of extrusion/forging/casting/mandrel processing if they aren't already doing it. At least with steel, forging may make better steel than milling.

willibrord

So that is interesting 28% increase results in 4% across the board price hike. How much of Shimanos price rise is due to tariffs on chinese origin goods and how much is from their changing their distribution mark ups?

CliffordK

I presume tariffs on finished goods would be on the wholesale cost.

So, a 20% tariff on a $50 wholesale item would increase that item to $60.

If the retailers do a 100% markup on that item, then it would have retailed for $100. However, with the tariff, the item shifts to $60 + $60 or $120. Another 10% sales tax would increase that product to $120 + $12 = $132.

Since the markups are generally a fixed calculation of the cost to the retailer (or intermediary wholesaler), the 20% tariff tends to get preserved out to the retail cost.

Yet, the government is only collecting taxes on a small portion of the final retail sales price.

Shimano won't care about raw materials prices in the USA. In fact, the raw materials tariffs may actually reduce their costs by forcing overseas suppliers of raw materials to cut costs and try to compensate for lost US sales.

Keep in mind that overseas purchases of bike parts hit numerous loopholes in that they are neither taxed EU/UK VAT, nor come in with US Tariffs or local sales taxes.

CliffordK

The tariffs may well be a mess for companies like Honda that build cars in the USA out of US and foreign components. And, any US raw materials would get the tariff bump no mater whether sourced locally or overseas.

I-Like-To-Bike

Exactly what I have been wondering after reading the conniptions some posters are having about the future costs of their apparently endless process of constantly upgrading and replacing parts on their bicycles. What percentage of bicyclists do that sort of thing?

Sure, tires, tubes, spokes and cables and such wear out after moderate use and need to be replaced occasionally, but really, stockpiling parts and rebuilding bicycles on a routine basis?

willibrord

Thanks for the explanation. I'm not happy about paying more for everything. It would be worth it if the stuff was made in America, but it isn't.