Bike Frame Prices (Trek)

relanium
relanium Posts: 487
edited September 2010 in Road buying advice
Went to my local bike shop at the weekend to ask if they knew the price of the new 2011 Madone 6 Series SSL Frame, he was checking on the computer as I was stood behind him and caught sight of how much they buy them in for & how much they sell them for....
They buy the frame from Trek for £1500 and sell it for £3100 - How can this be!!!

Comments

  • dmch2
    dmch2 Posts: 731
    Sounds about right. All retail shops do a similar mark-up on whatever they sell. Think how much they have to pay out in salaries, rent etc

    It could be worse, the company that make the chassis for my car (Caterham) would sell them privately for £1000 but Caterham don't let them and instead sell them for £5000 ! It's only a few steel tubes brazed together...

    35.jpg (They put some ali skin on as well).
    2010 Trek 1.5 Road - swissstop green, conti GP4000S
    2004 Marin Muirwoods Hybrid
  • relanium
    relanium Posts: 487
    Its just a shame we can't bypass the bike shop and buy straight from Trek or other frame builders.
  • Percy Vera
    Percy Vera Posts: 1,103
    relanium wrote:
    Its just a shame we can't bypass the bike shop and buy straight from Trek or other frame builders.

    Then the manufacturers would require bigger premises, more staff, more advertising then you're back to square one (almost).

    What did you expect?
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    relanium wrote:
    Its just a shame we can't bypass the bike shop and buy straight from Trek or other frame builders.


    I once bought a frame directly from Trek and the prices quoted by the OP are about right. (I was working for an organization that Trek provides race bikes to, so was able to purchase directly from them.)


    And think about how much it actually costs Trek to make that frame. Probably a few hundred ££ at the most. Everyone in the pipeline has to make money. This is how capitalism works!

    Also explains how retailers can drop the price on bikes to half or less at the end of a season if it doesn't sell - and still make money!
  • Lillywhite
    Lillywhite Posts: 742
    relanium wrote:
    They buy the frame from Trek for £1500 and sell it for £3100 - How can this be!!!

    Overheads, profit and VAT which increases to 20% in January.

    This way the best deals are usually on line because they don't have expensive retail premises.
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    Lillywhite wrote:
    relanium wrote:
    They buy the frame from Trek for £1500 and sell it for £3100 - How can this be!!!

    Overheads, profit and VAT which increases to 20% in January.

    This way the best deals are usually on line because they don't have expensive retail premises.


    Unfortunately - you can't buy Trek bikes from an online-ONLY retailer. Trek have an agreement with all their retailers that specifies the bikes can only be collected in store and not shipped. Keeps their prices high. :oops:
  • Lillywhite
    Lillywhite Posts: 742
    Pokerface wrote:
    Unfortunately - you can't buy Trek bikes from an online-ONLY retailer. Trek have an agreement with all their retailers that specifies the bikes can only be collected in store and not shipped. Keeps their prices high. :oops:

    Yes, I was aware of that. My comments were related in general to buying from a bike shop that has high street retail premises and the fact that they need a significant mark-up from manufacturer's trade price to survive and still make a modest net profit.
  • wildmoustache
    wildmoustache Posts: 4,010
    Trek are crap for framesets. Don't know why but it seriously limits their appeal at the high end of the market (where they have some nice stuff). People at this end of the market (and I'm one of them) usually want to build up from a frame.
  • relanium
    relanium Posts: 487
    Maybe now that I know what the bike shop buys them in for, I could try haggle the price down.... Especially when its only a small bike shop and there is 2 people that only work there.
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    relanium wrote:
    Maybe now that I know what the bike shop buys them in for, I could try haggle the price down.... Especially when its only a small bike shop and there is 2 people that only work there.

    Good luck with that. Trek isn't a brand that sits on the shelf for too long. It's hard to find last year's models available at a discount (hard but not impossible), let alone trying to get a discount on next years'.

    But it is not impossible. If you are a good customer they should give you something off. I managed to get a small discount on a new frame from a dealer once. Doesn't hurt to ask.

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