Canyon Euro/GBP madness - suggestions?!

SpiceBoyUK

I am about to order a new Canyon bike but the new fixed Euro rates are crazy. I am looking at an Ultimate CF SL 9.0 for £1,999 but in Euros it costs €2,199, or approx. £1,750 i.e. £250 cheaper! I get that Canyon may want to price that way but I'd like to get a cheaper bike, or more bike for my money. I do have a Euro denominated debit card that I could transfer money to at a good exchange rate but not sure if it's worth it! Can anyone comment on these options?

Option 1- I can pick "Ireland" on the website and it calculates the price in Euros and lets me enter a UK delivery address. I expect they will just reject my order which might just waste a lot of time.

Option 2 - I could get it delivered to somewhere in France, maybe Lille, and go on the Eurostar to collect (approx £90 return). Maybe I could pick it up from a UPS office as Canyon normally ship via UPS?

Option 3 - I could fly to Germany and collect it. Cheap flight to Frankfurt plus an hour or so on the train. Would probably end up costing £250 anyway!

Any thoughts?

Robin

charlie_potatoes

I'd wait a while. The pound has dropped a bit over the last couple of days. If the trend continues the UK option will be a bargain in a month or so.

LinkD

I'm in a similar situation as I'm waiting and planning to take advantage of the cheaper Euro prices. Luckily for me, i have relatives in Germany who have agreed to bring the bike to me

charlie_potatoes

LinkD wrote:

I'm in a similar situation as I'm waiting and planning to take advantage of the cheaper Euro prices. Luckily for me, i have relatives in Germany who have agreed to bring the bike to me

Keep in mind that the brakes will be set up continental and you may want to swap them over.

Anonymous

But it does make the cabling at the front end look prettier

darkhairedlord

They take PayPal but only in euros.

durhamwasp

Charlie Potatoes wrote:

LinkD wrote:

I'm in a similar situation as I'm waiting and planning to take advantage of the cheaper Euro prices. Luckily for me, i have relatives in Germany who have agreed to bring the bike to me

Keep in mind that the brakes will be set up continental and you may want to swap them over.

Do Canyon not let you decide on the brake set-up? I just received my Rose and they gave me the choice of what side I wanted to be what brake before ordering.

poacher13

SpiceBoyUK wrote:

I am about to order a new Canyon bike but the new fixed Euro rates are crazy. I am looking at an Ultimate CF SL 9.0 for £1,999 but in Euros it costs €2,199, or approx. £1,750 i.e. £250 cheaper! I get that Canyon may want to price that way but I'd like to get a cheaper bike, or more bike for my money. I do have a Euro denominated debit card that I could transfer money to at a good exchange rate but not sure if it's worth it! Can anyone comment on these options?

Option 1- I can pick "Ireland" on the website and it calculates the price in Euros and lets me enter a UK delivery address. I expect they will just reject my order which might just waste a lot of time.

Option 2 - I could get it delivered to somewhere in France, maybe Lille, and go on the Eurostar to collect (approx £90 return). Maybe I could pick it up from a UPS office as Canyon normally ship via UPS?

Option 3 - I could fly to Germany and collect it. Cheap flight to Frankfurt plus an hour or so on the train. Would probably end up costing £250 anyway!

Any thoughts?

Robin

Send it to me in Ireland then pick it up from me?

adamfo

darkhairedlord wrote:

They take PayPal but only in euros.

I just bought some walking boots from bike24 in Germany
http://www.bike24.com/1.php?content=8;s ... duct=57856
and it worked out cheaper paying by credit card because the exchange rate is better than the PP option. This was despite my Master card having a 2% foreign exchange rate fee !

The problem with canyon's switch to fixed rate pricing is they choose a period when sterling was weaker than it is now. When I bought my Canyon MTB 18 months ago they used a real time exchange rate rounded to a twice weekly figure.

Someone should try that Ireland ruse !

I almost bought an Endurance but was put off by the circa + 9 % which to my mind is against the principle of the EU Single Market. Canyon should take a look at the http://www.bike-discount.de/
site which enables you to select a currency at a decent exchange rate on bikes like Cube.

SpiceBoyUK

Just thought I would try putting "Ireland" as my country at the start but when you get to the delivery address and select "UK" as the country, it reprices your basket into GBP. Now, I could keep the country as "Ireland" and fill in a UK address and postcode and hope that UPS gets it right, but that's too risky for me to try...

Cheers,

Robin

P.S. Thanks for the tips about the brake left/right thing - I didn't know that. I rented a bike in Italy this summer and the brakes were UK setup - probably saved me from falling off an Alp...

darkhairedlord

have you tried asking canyon?

Bar Shaker

I would ask Canyon if you can pay in Euros and have it delivered to the UK. Your bank will charge 2%, some on-line agents are a fraction of this.

Just because their website is laid out in a certain way doesn't mean all other options are closed.

CptKernow

Strange. The price for the frame I ordered seems to be the same in Euros / GBP

SpiceBoyUK

The Canyon website is slightly flaky - sometimes it lists the UK price but with a € symbol. Try switching your location to France and back to UK and see if it changes the price...

ai_1

SpiceBoyUK wrote:

The Canyon website is slightly flaky - sometimes it lists the UK price but with a € symbol. Try switching your location to France and back to UK and see if it changes the price...

Never experienced that. Are you sure you were reading it correctly?

6wheels

After seeing this I've emailed Canyon regarding paying the Euro price with a Euro debit card! Will take a couple of days for reply, apparently.

Cptkernow, I noticed that as well...strange.

adamfo

darkhairedlord wrote:

have you tried asking canyon?

I asked to pay in euros a while back and they said no. I didn't push the point though.

mamba80

im looking at a slx 9.0, the price difference is £280, I understand they will want to cover their exchange rate costs and there are differing tax rates but to me its just a form of profiteering.

I am in email contact with their German product manager at mo (un related issues) but I ll ask him and post back.

SpiceBoyUK

I emailed Canyon yesterday and got the same "we're busy so allow 1-2 days for a reply" so I called Canyon in the UK and they said if the bike is shipped to the UK you need to pay in GBP. I asked about shipping to somewhere else that I could collect from and they said that's fine - lots of customers have friends, relatives, etc. I also asked about shipping to a UPS depot and he said I'd have to check that with UPS...

So I called UPS and the person I spoke to was a bit confused about what I wanted and said he could only look up depots in the UK! I said I can see them on your website and he figured out how to do it. In France, almost all of the UPS offices are newsagents, etc. where you can send and receive small parcels but nothing as big as a bike.

I'll wait until they reply to my email but it looks like GBP is the only option. To be fair, they locked their UK prices down a while ago so it's not like I'm paying extra cash for the bike, it's just I'm missing out on a cheaper option...

Cheers,

Robin

Bar Shaker

mamba80 wrote:

im looking at a slx 9.0, the price difference is £280, I understand they will want to cover their exchange rate costs and there are differing tax rates but to me its just a form of profiteering.

I am in email contact with their German product manager at mo (un related issues) but I ll ask him and post back.

You are payng their currency (Euros) and there are no tax differences for sales within the EU.

This is just profiteering and it is illegal under EU law.

alex222

Bar Shaker wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

im looking at a slx 9.0, the price difference is £280, I understand they will want to cover their exchange rate costs and there are differing tax rates but to me its just a form of profiteering.

I am in email contact with their German product manager at mo (un related issues) but I ll ask him and post back.

You are payng their currency (Euros) and there are no tax differences for sales within the EU.

This is just profiteering and it is illegal under EU law.

Quite an accusation to state that they are breaking EU law. They are likely to hedge their FX risk, which could well mean using that one fixed FX rate.
I do however think it is poor that they do not allow UK customers to pay in Euro's.

Calpol

Alex222 wrote:

Bar Shaker wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

im looking at a slx 9.0, the price difference is £280, I understand they will want to cover their exchange rate costs and there are differing tax rates but to me its just a form of profiteering.

I am in email contact with their German product manager at mo (un related issues) but I ll ask him and post back.

You are payng their currency (Euros) and there are no tax differences for sales within the EU.

This is just profiteering and it is illegal under EU law.

Quite an accusation to state that they are breaking EU law. They are likely to hedge their FX risk, which could well mean using that one fixed FX rate.
I do however think it is poor that they do not allow UK customers to pay in Euro's.

The volatilty of F/X is a real problem for companies that export. 1 cent moves in the exchange rate can have huge swings in profitability. I know that with my own company every cent movement costs/benefits around £60m in the year. Yes you can hedge but its a risk in itself. Canyon bikes still represent good value just slightly poorer than before but it could all change again in the future. Buy your bike and enjoy riding it

Roberto di Velo

I noticed this issue a few weeks back when I was in Holland and the Canyon website gave me a price in Euros.

I have a feeling that in the past, the price in pounds on Canyon's website used to fluctuate according to exchange rates, and hence the price you paid was often a bit random, say £1,436.58. The price of the pound has gone up pretty significantly against the Euro over the past year, and my guess is that Canyon have effectively fixed the UK price. Other posters are correct that this does appear to be against EU law.

I'm unsure whether this particular issue is likely to be enforced, because I'd guess that loads of companies do it. Agree that Canyon's are still great value, but maybe if you have any European friends you could get a decent discount.

SpiceBoyUK

I am most definitely not a lawyer, but for UK customers the price has stayed the same all year as the rates were fixed and I don't believe that's illegal or unusual! Customers didn't like the fact that the price would be £x today and£10.37 more tomorrow. Having said that, I would still like the option to pay in EUR to get a cheaper bike, but not the obligation to pay more if exchange rates went the other way! :-)

SpiceBoyUK

I gave up trying to get creative and just ordered the bike in GBP. If anyone does come up with anything clever, do please let us know!

Cheers,

Robin

darkhairedlord

SpiceBoyUK wrote:

I gave up trying to get creative and just ordered the bike in GBP. If anyone does come up with anything clever, do please let us know!

Cheers,

Robin

Ask Canyon, you know, the people you're buying from. Phone them up and ask them!

SpiceBoyUK

As per my previous post, I did phone them up and ask them! They said if it's being delivered to the UK, it's priced in GBP...

adamfo

I believe they can charge what they want in different markets however, they appear to be breaking normal single market VAT procedures. I'm a VAT registered trader and when buying in other member states you give your VAT no. and the sale is VAT free. VAT cannot be reclaimed later as it is with UK purchases.

Canyon refused to do that and charged me VAT @ 20% instead of the German rate of 19%.

Companies like YT operate correctly in supplies to other member states.

Interestingly some of the other German bike retailers also have UK VAT registration numbers as well as their German ones.

Bar Shaker

SpiceBoyUK wrote:

I am most definitely not a lawyer, but for UK customers the price has stayed the same all year as the rates were fixed and I don't believe that's illegal or unusual! Customers didn't like the fact that the price would be £x today and£10.37 more tomorrow. Having said that, I would still like the option to pay in EUR to get a cheaper bike, but not the obligation to pay more if exchange rates went the other way! :-)

I used to export to two main distributors of my products in Europe. I also sold retail in the UK. My EU distributors sold to retailers in the EU and by the time the products got in front of the customer, it was borderline cheaper for them to buy direct from me in the UK with the cost of shipping. All of this was fine as the difference in pricing was the result of different margins being applied by different companies, in different countries.

What is most definitely not legal is one company saying you can buy this for €400 if you live in Germany, France and Italy but if you are in Spain or the UK it is €425. Many years ago, VW were fined hundreds of millions for doing exactly this.

This is not about hedging currency, as the OP wishes to pay in Canyon's own currency. By stopping him doing so and saying he must pay an inflated price in GBP, Canyon are breaking EU law.

If Canyon had a UK distributor and you were buying from him, the UK company could choose their own price. That isn't the case. The OP wants to trade with a German company and pay them in their own currency. They are saying he must pay a higher price, simply because he is in Great Britain. That is illegal.

Dodger747

Not sure where all this breaking EU law comes from!?

Member states rates of VAT differ from 15% - 27% therefore there will be price variations - despite claims, there is no single market /capital union when it comes to that. Seems to me, they want to simplify their online store - country of shipping = currency used. Surely not that hard to understand?

Bar Shaker

The vat rate here is the applicable rate in Germany. The prevailing rate in the customer's country does not apply.

Canyon are ripping off UK customers and are breaking EU law by doing so. I'm sorry if some people who have no knowledge of EU law don't agree with that.

If Canyon want to legally rip off UK customers then they need to do so through a UK distributor.