i just now noticed a certain wholesaler raised their prices on sugino 75 cranksets $40. AGAIN. i think that's a $70 increase in 8 months.

thanks, bffgss.

Still $165 with chainring at bikeisland.com. Still not a good deal.

I sitll can't understand why price lists are treated like state secrets here. I can't imagine any other group of enthusiats who would work so hard to keep each other in the dark about something like this.

that is such hogwash. god damn.

Yes, clearly it's the message board's fault.

I noticed that a couple days ago.
It's kind of bummer.

Can someone fill in those who have no idea what the **** you are talking about? (in relation to these "wholesale" prices).

if you just buy campy its so expensive you won't be so worried about a few bucks here and there.

these are the prices that your LBS pays for them. people feel questionable about revealing them because then it makes you be like "man my LBS is charging me up the ass for these"

It very well might have something to do with the dollar tanking. If they sold out of existing stock which was purchased with a stronger dollar of course the price would go up when it's time to restock.

More exactly certain mods seem to think that we have no right no know what the wholesale prices are and delete them whenever they are posted. It's part of this bizzare "LBSes should be treated like a charity because it can't compete with internet(originally mail-order) stores" idea that certain loud idiots have beaten cyclists over the head with for years.

i agree with dutret.

More exactly part of the agreement a shop has with QBP is that they don't disclose wholesale prices publicly. If a shop breaks that agreement they can lose the privilege of buying from QBP.

That should not be the concern of the moderators the information is pertitent to the interests of forum members. As I said I doubt there is any other community that would censor information like this. More importantly though the only purpose keeping the information secret acheivies is price fixing. It's a pretty weak argument anyway since the chance of QBP figuring out where the leak came from and refusing to sell the shop from a message board post is infintesimal.

Why do you need to know the wholesale cost of a product? What non-cycling related products do you know the wholesale costs of?

You're right, and regardless of whether the shop finds out, we should be allowed to share the info. I have a list of Ritchey/Syncros wholesale prices that I can give anyone who asks, I can place an order for you too.

on the kawasaki motorcycle forums members share info to know how bad they're gettin ripped off

edit: or to see if it's a sweet deal

I don't need to but I would like to. Mostly just because it's interesting but it does serve a practical purpose too. It lets me know if the shop is lying(which they almost always are) when they say that they can't match a price. If I have stuff I need it means I can walk into a shop with a list of parts and the price I'm willing to pay for them knowing that both of us are going to be doing well on the deal. Otherwise I get stuck giving them a list, getting quoted a ridiculous price and spending the next half hour haggling only to end up walking out and ordering the stuff elsewhere.

There is simply no reason to censor this information if people who have it are willing to post it.

i'd tell you but i've made it very public knowlege which shop i work for. and if i got caught i'm not the one who'd be punished, it would be the folks who were nice enough to give me a job. i will say that even at wholesale, they're still more than i'm willing to spend on cranks.

if you're going into a shop to buy stuff (rather than just ordering online in the first place) you have to understand that it WILL cost more than the cheapest deal you can find online. usually significantly more.

if you're sure of what you want and are capable of installing things yourself there's really no reason to ever set foot in a shop for anything besides tubes.

i empathize with wanting to support your bike shop. but unless you're willing to look at the price difference as a "donation" whose denomination is set and non negotiable, then most retail style shops are not there to serve you. they're there to serve people who dont want to do their own homework and are willing to pay a premium to avoid working on their bikes.

No way, tubes are like $5 at my LBS, and $2-$3 online.

You have no idea of what operating costs a given shop has. Just because they get a part for x dollars doesn't mean they can sell it at x + whatever percent you think is fair.

It's attitudes like yours which make the case for keeping such info private. Sounds like you are a total pain in the ass customer.

ill never understand why people feel its in their right to haggle at a bike shop. i dont try to talk a clothing store down on their price for jeans, i dont argue my grocery stores cost of milk, and the last time i tried to haggle for a cheaper price on shots at a bar i was asked to leave.

and i say this as someone who works in a bike shop. i like giving people good deals as much as anyone, and i am happy that I am given a little leeway in that, but if youre a dick about it im far less inclined to take the time. i agree with zeimas. you sound like a customer from hell.

funny this came up..
a customer we hate to deal with (yet treat him like a king) came in the other day asking us to special order him a deda pista stem. the price we gave him was about $55 more than the cheapest price he could find online and wanted us to match the price. at first i were a little hesitant since i would have to special order it but i gave in and lowered our price to within $20 of what he found it for online. i felt this was reasonable since he would have to pay for shipping on top of his price and i would have it for him the next day but i was wrong. he sat there for the next 5 minutes asking me why i couldn't ( or wouldn't) match the price. he had this look on his face like i just killed his first born son when i kept saying that the new price was VERY fair and i would not come down any more. no amount of reasoning would make him understand and he ended up walking out kinda pissed off.
people like that make me set a timer on how much time i have left in this industry.
sure, i could have matched the price and made a few bucks (literally) on the deal but in a way it wasn't worth it.
shops will give deals if you come across as not being a pain in the ass.

you're comparing the wrong things onetwentyeight. you haggle at motorcycle and car dealerships, why not at bike shops?

Dutret really is the epitome of the dreaded "internet customer". The guy who brings in a pile of parts which are far from a complete bike and expects us to hunt through the catalog for the minor bits and bobs to complete his/her mongrel. Or the person who believes the "Campy Record" Bikesdirect bike is at all comparable to X Bike at a bike shop. As far as I know, wholesale prices qualify as trade secrets and unless you're in the industry you have no right to know what the mark up is. With the slow turnover of non-keystone products in bike shops, it is absolutely necessary to keep wholesale costs mum.

Also, keep in mind the crumbling mortgage lending market when you ***** about rising costs on anything from imported cheese to bike parts. It has little to do with your struggling small business owner.