jamest

Hi Naas, any chance of these on special: DT SWISS XM 421 29 / 25MM 32H RIM

Interestingly I see in the EU geolocking has been determined to be a restrictive practice within the EU - if only our Competition Commission had some focus on this issue...the local importers have enough of protection in the form of the awful service from the post office on incoming shipments if you dont use a courier Geo-blocking is a discriminatory practice that prevents online customers from accessing and purchasing products or services from a website based in another member state. In order to remove this barrier, the EU is putting in place a geo-blocking regulation. On 27 February 2018, the Council adopted the regulation to ban unjustified geo-blocking in the internal market. "The end of geo-blocking means wider choice, better deals for consumers and more opportunities for businesses", said Lilyana Pavlova, Minister for the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU. The regulation will remove discrimination based on: customers' nationalityplace of residenceplace of establishment

Hi there, point taken that this maybe is a small market and there may also be issues at oem level but that doesn't fully explain the situation I don't think because you can still buy those very same Shimano parts from these retailers if you change your shipping address to an eu country. While market size may, in part, also explain the higher pricing here it seems excessive compared to eu pricing - if you happen to be in an eu country travelling it is still a lot cheaper for you to buy the product and pay the vat rates which in Germany are 19% and pay the incoming vat of 15% here- you still save bucs even if you don't reclaim the German vat on leaving the country which can be a bit of a pain. At the end of the day I think it is an example of how the SA consumer often gets worked over with local pricing. I haven't been a cyclist for too long but I quickly worked out that pricing here doesn't stack up against available international pricing - I don't think anyone would moan about a small reasonable premium for local supply convenience but what I see is not a small premium - it's price gouging in many instances! Where in the supply chain that is happening is not clear

Hi, it's been happening for a few months. First I noticed was Chain reaction. I suspect that Coolheat who is the local importer has probably been losing business steadily to international ecommerce for some time now given that SA pricing appears to be significantly higher and has somehow managed to convince Shimano to agree to segment and restrict market access to SA consumers. If that is the case I would think this practice is possibly at odds with some sections of the Competition Act that prohibit market allocation.