Planet Pi$$ Take

tour newbie

I'm trying to put together a new bike and madeningly Planet X keep upping their frameset prices.

A Nanolight high modulus frameset that was "originally" £1,199 and was being discounted to £499 including fork jumped up to £699 last night while I was online.

Tonight the regular Nanolight frameset jumped from £399 including fork to £499 (with the non-discounted price jumping from £899 to £999 thereby conveniently maintaining the discount in cash terms at which the frame is trading).

Regardless of whether the frames still represent good value this is the same inventory that has been previously advertised at the lower prices.

I for one won't be taken for a ride; pun intendend!

Percy Vera

That's how sales generally work... prices are lowered for a certain period of time then go back up :roll:

You'll just have to wait for their Easter Sale!

desweller

Come off it - that Nanolight Hi-Mod frame was at £499 for almost 2 months! If you snooze (and we're talking Rip Van Winkle grade kipping here) you lose...

Wappygixer

Planet X seen to work the same way as Halfords.Both offer continuous sales with crazy offers.
The simple fact is has anyone ever bought these products at the highest price? I very much doupt it.
Its all about marketing and making the customer think he has a good deal.
Would you pay £1199 for a Planet X frameset when there are so many more brands out these at that price point?
At the end of the day prices go up and down.They will always impact on someone and this time its you.
I always go with my gut feeling.If it feels right I do it if not then it wasn't meant to be.

PhilofCas

Must admit to having sympathy for the OP, I am a big fan of PX but the price movements are a little frustrating at times, I'd say they need more stability

amaferanga

Its clever marketing isn't it? People know that the prices could go up any time so they buy there and then instead of putting it off til next week/month/year.

OP was just unlucky with his timing. Don't think P-X have done anything wrong at all.

tour newbie

DesWeller wrote:

Come off it - that Nanolight Hi-Mod frame was at £499 for almost 2 months! If you snooze (and we're talking Rip Van Winkle grade kipping here) you lose...

I know what you're saying but on this occasion I hadn't been in the market until a small windfall came my way this week and I decided to upgrade to carbon.

Anyway, they're perfectly entitled to move their prices up and down as they see fit (although other retailers indicate the duration of an offer period which I think that is the fairest way to do things). I do have a problem with them manipulating the so called original price which leaves you thinking you have got a better deal.

sturmey

I ,for one, do not share the general hysteria about the so called bargains offered by Planet X .
I think they are successful in some way because of a shortage of competition.
If you look at the Stealth fameset for example (they have just put that model up in price too) - you are paying just shy of £650 for frame/forks, headset, forkbung etc. for what is a fairly bread and butter frame that has not had a revamp for several years.

Yet mainly because of a lack of competiton, it is still arguably a good buy in its price range ,

BUT

on the other hand you could get a new Cervelo P2 frame/forks/headset for just over £400 more, which may sound a lot more but money, but it is generally reckoned to be the best buy at this price range and has without doubt a far greater pedigree than the humble PX.

If the Stealth was half the price of the branded frame it might be worth my money.
As it is, and with the recent price increase, they can keep it.

Monty Dog

You can buy an unbranded 'Nanolight' frame direct from China on ebay for less than £300 - sourced from the same factory, X-pace Industrial. Or you could be completely irrational and pay £1000+ for a Chinese-made frame with some stickers-on that is of similar quality.

buder

Monty Dog wrote:

You can buy an unbranded 'Nanolight' frame direct from China on ebay for less than £300 - sourced from the same factory, X-pace Industrial. Or you could be completely irrational and pay £1000+ for a Chinese-made frame with some stickers-on that is of similar quality.

+1 you need to understand the PlanetX business Model and Monty touches on it above.

Im not knocking it, it does offer fantastic value for money at times and dont forget they do offer a pretty decent warranty and crash replacement scheme which you may not get off ebay.....oh and they are a British firm which does count for something in my book atleast these days.

I agree aswell the price changes are really frustrating at times.

desweller

Monty Dog wrote:

You can buy an unbranded 'Nanolight' frame direct from China on ebay for less than £300 - sourced from the same factory, X-pace Industrial. Or you could be completely irrational and pay £1000+ for a Chinese-made frame with some stickers-on that is of similar quality.

Yes but you have to also remember that PX will be paying tax on that same frame, plus a markup (after all, they are a business); after you factor in those elements it does not seem like such a bad deal (at the discounted price at least).

unixnerd

Phone them and ask to buy at the 499 price. You've nothing to loose! Worth a go :-)

tour newbie

unixnerd wrote:

Phone them and ask to buy at the 499 price. You've nothing to loose! Worth a go :-)

Tried that; no dice.

daveplanetx

In our defence the price of nanolight and over 600 other lines were very aggressively discounted in our January sale , not to mention 5000 lines did not get a vat price rise.

We were very up front all along that prices were going to go up in February , not only the original vat increase that we swallowed for a month , but the sale prices were going back up again .

Nanolights were also heavily discounted because we were pretty overstocked , plus the sale in general was pretty brutal because we had some extremely large bills to pay at end of January and we needed a big spike in turnover , plus very importantly as we were moving warehouse in early feb we wanted to run stock levels as low as possible (so we didnt have to move it).

We had a doubling of sales in january so the sale was pretty succesful . .

We generally have quite a bit of special purchase stock that when its gone its gone - at the moment some Van Nicholas frames at 30% off , SMART lights at 50% off - and they key is to buy em when we still have them and not miss out

The sale prices should have been hiked at start of February , however we then had the huge warehouse move so the sale was allowed to continue simply because we couldnt get the prices changed (its quite difficult to reprice 5000 lines) . , However it was I think pretty clear that sale prices were for january only - and January is now gone .

Having said that if the OP mails me at dave@planet-x-bikes.com then I can try to soften the blow .

I realise we do jump around a bit too much on pricing , some of the time this works in the customers favour as they can get a great deal - for instance our clearance schwalbe tyres now are being sold at way under the price we would pay to re-order , so when we sell out our new prices will be double what they are now . And sometimes it doesnt and customers do miss out but we have many factors that influence pricing - need for cash - inventory levels - new v old model - need for space - etc etc.

Guess that doesnt help much but it might explain a bit of background .

blackpoolkev

Nice to see the people at Planet X are listening and putting some effort into keeping customer happy/informed.Good work.