Price raise

More like price alignment.
You guys are wrong.Cycling has only just returned to the mainstream in this country.
prices are just realigning with other products.On top of this currency is fluctuating and labour and material costs have risen enormously.
what makes you think its the retailers fleecing the buyers?The importers are in the CHAIN too!
Your local bike shop is probably closed down due to so many people abandoning them and switching to web shops.Oh but you will have nown that their still there cause you popped in at 5.29 to borrow an allen key once. 8)

Pound Against the Yen over the last 12 months
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/fds/ ... _month.stm

The price of imported goods will rise as the pound looses value against the manufacturers currency.

For example
When the Pound was at $2 I could purchase 10 Hella 550 Lens covers with £10
Now with it back at $1.50 I can purchase 7 Hella 550 Lens covers with £10 (as you can't buy 0.5 of a cover)

If the pound drops to $1 I woudl be able to purchase 5 Hella 550 Lens covers with £10.

This of course ignores the fact that the cost of Hella 550 Lens covers will change as the company I buy them from gets them in huge quantities from Hella in Germany, and so the $ cost of them depends on the Euro - USD exchange rate too.

Had I bought 1000 USD (cost £500) when the exchange rate was £1 = $2 and held onto them I could now sell the $ for £750.

For bike kit, the price changes will depend on what the suppliers need to buy them. It;s easier to describe using petrol as an example.

If I ran a petrol station, and I am selling petrol at 20p a litre (ignoring taxes) and the wholesale price rises such that I need to charge 40p a litre to keep the same profit margin, I need to increase my price ASAP so that I can afford to buy in the next tank full of petrol. This is one of the reasons many stations were regularly short on fuel while prices were rising, they simply could not afford to fill their tanks. Now with the price dropping they are able to keep their margins the same but drop the price knowing they don't need to spend so much to get their next tank full.

The product turn over for a cycling goods distributor will be lower than for a petrol station of course. If we take a low yield product that the distributor can keep a single supply of for a year before ordering more, if it was an open market (bear in mind manufacturers usually have only one distributor per country) 1 distributor could find that they paid a lot more than their competitors for low yield items (example a company buying in parts from the US now, compared to the company that bought their stock in June)

right now I am waiting for Sachs UK distributor to provide Wiggle with 1 Avid BB7 Road Front. They were due mid-november, bugger all back from wiggle since the "We will contact them to find out" e-mail last week.

Might just have to find some store selling them in another country

Took a mate round some local shops to buy his first road bike. One with a jig in the shop refused to sit him on it as that's just for their own handmade frames, gave an incorrect top tube measurement for the bike he was interested in (63cm for a 58cm specialized !) and when queried insisted they were correct, didn't get a bike out for him to sit on and basically offered zero in the way of service - in fact if he'd bought on line at least he'd have got accurate frame measurements and the on line sizing guides would be better than the complete lack of advice offered by the shop.

imports now cost more so not surprised Assos goods etc are more expensive. Local LBS sells BMX's as well and they've gone through the roof in terms of price. LBS can't do anything about it as the costs are being passed on to them by their suppliers so I imagine the same will be happening with Giant dealers, Specialized, Trek,etc. Import businesses (bike trade) will suffer in the UK but exporters will prosper.
Basic economics boys and girls

jonnydcp wrote:

Why is it when most retailers are reducing their prices, due to the VAT reduction, state of the economy etc, online cycling stores are wacking the price of everything up.

Cetain retailers are reducing the prices of specific goods to either increase income or reduce stock levels. The government has reduced the price of VAT by 2.5% partially to stimulate consumer spending and partially to assist mainly smaller, unregistered, companies who may not be able to reclaim the full amount of VAT. Remembering of course that VAT is in many ways a 'loan' given by the consumer to the government although it is actually reclaimed (repaid) elsewhere in the supply chain.

The price a retailer sets for a good is net of VAT and is not influenced by the VAT rate other than to preserve "price pointing". Basically, If the price the consumer payed for an item in November was £117.50 it will now be £115. The amount to the retailer will still be £100 it's just that HMRC will get £2.5 less.

Reducing VAT will, ironically, put the income to the retailer up for many items up as they retain their price point especially on low value items. For example, an item previously costing £13.49 would be reduced to £13.21. However, a retailer may be inclined to price the item at £13.25.

Bob

I've noticed that they had put a couple of items up in the sale to what they were before the sale