LBS Salesmen..... bullsh!tters??????

[Canaris]

The old dayz of simply taking production costs and addinga 20% profit margin are long gone. It noew works like this:

 

 

 

mmmm

 

I can sell this product for $4000, (if it has my name on it)

 

Let me see where can I get this the cheapest?

 

(Buy a already developed product and rebadge it. See Raliegh and Haro and some others.

 

Get some manufacturer to cut corners in China. Read M&G today about lead paint in toys)

 

Finally, Wow we have posted a massive profit of 200% now how can we push the price up, or how can we negotiate to get cheaper components.

 

 

 

So the price you pay is totally unrelated to how much the product actually cost to make, but is directly related to the amount you are willing to fork out.

 

 

 

So if you want cheaper stuff stop buying the expensive stuff. A few months later the price will come down as new blinger stuff becomes available.

[AttieSlabbert]

Yip, That is how it works!!I know.  If some people are willing to pay heaps for a name on a sticker on a frame or part---- be my guest, but then don't tell me afterwards your parts are better than mine when it is the same thing. Maybe you have a better sticker!!!

[AttieSlabbert]

Quality doesn't have to be expensive!!!!!

[Canaris]

Yip' date=' That is how it works!!I know. ?If some people are willing to pay heaps for a name on a sticker on a frame or part---- be my guest, but then don't tell me afterwards your parts are better than mine when it is the same thing. Maybe you have a better sticker!!![/quote']

 

 

 

My stickers were made in RSA

[AttieSlabbert]

My stickers were made in RSA

 

That statement can go both ways - double edged sword!!!

[Canaris]

precisely,

 

 

 

like

 

"you will be lucky to get this man to work for you".

 

"he is a great starter of things (fails at finishing)

 

"she is high on spirit" ie Manto

[Trispoke]

Just a quick anecdote.

Guy walks into a shop with a bad attitude. Starts asking vague questions. Salesperson starts giving vague answers. Customer gets nasty, points to a bike and says 'How much does this bike weigh?'

Bike in question in a partially built Raleigh lacking half of the components as the owner still has to bring stuff to build onto the bike.

Salesperson asks whether the customer wants to know the weight of the bike incomplete as it stands there, they weight of the bike complete with standard build, the weight of the frame only...

Customer strips his mrrrr and yells 'Stop f***ing waffling and give me a straight f***ing answer!'

How I managed not to kick him in the proverbial I will never know... glad to be out of the business!

 

[pastapouch]

all of this discussion about prices just comes to one conclusion : a fool and his money is soon parted

[Johan Bornman]

Just a quick anecdote.
Guy walks into a shop with a bad attitude. Starts asking vague questions. Salesperson starts giving vague answers. Customer gets nasty' date=' points to

snip snip....

 

Customer strips his mrrrr and yells 'Stop f***ing waffling and give me a straight f***ing answer!'
How I managed not to kick him in the proverbial I will never know... glad to be out of the business!
[/quote']

With all these wisearses in cycling I'd hate to work in a bike shop. What is it with this weight thing? I had a guy (won't call him a customer because no money exchanged hands) who has visted me three times regarding a set of dream wheels he wants built. Each time he wants to know if I can save weight by doing this or doing that. Last time, he wanted to know if I can make the spokes shorter but use long aluminium nipples. Then he realised if you go one less across, you have a shorter spoke and therefore even lighter wheels. Finally, he asked me to calculate the spoke lengths for him so that he can order them from some discount shop in Bulgaria or outer Hebridies and save cents as well as grams. I haven't seen him since but I'll certainly decline his next visit.

 

Johan Bornman2007-08-24 03:45:56

[pastapouch]

hmmmmm... one thing you do before you buy is find out what goes for what, what you want, find out about the product, otherwise the salesman's gonna see you coming!

[Trispoke]

Most people are in the cycling business for the love of it, because they certainly cannot be in it for the money. Yet after only spending a very short time in the business, I found the amount of lies customers tell and the amount of - let me leave this space blank for the sake of politeness - that bike shops have to put up with quite unbearable. I have the utmost respect for the guys who manage to stick it out in the business - I could not.

 

[Tumbleweed]

jb, similar story: had a guy in the shop (i work there on saturdays) for two weekends in a row. spent about an hour and an half in total telling him everything he needed to know about the sport (MTB in this case), gave him advice on all the kit he needed to get, pointed him in the direction of an affordable bike, tell him about our first-service-free policy, measured him up and told him what size he needed.

 

? two weeks pass and this guy comes back into the shop with his bike, complaining about this rattling and that coming loose, and telling me to fix it. as i wheel the bike to the workshop, ian (the owner) and paul (the wrencher) give me dirty looks. then ian asks the guy where he bought the bike?

 

"cajees", comes his reply, before adding, "but i've come to you guys for my free first service."

 

wtf?

 

ian's usually quite restrained. not that day. hounded him out the shop.

 

saw the guy once out on the trails, struggling with a mechanical. just rode on by ?

[scotty]

Thats why its important to have a good relationship with your LBS. I have often taken my bike to my LBS to fix some or other stuff up i've made fitting a part i've sourced elsewhere and they do it for me and have even swapped some parts that suited my bike better.

[gianni]

Guys and Gals

I used to think that most bikes are made in Europe' date=' Canada and America. I've been living in Taiwan now for almost 7 years and are involved in the bike biz. It was a HUGE eye opener for me when I saw the light after a while. The problem about LBS being ignorant or sometimes arrogant and misinforming customers are a global "problem". We walked into a few bikeshops in England last year and started talking about manufacturing. The owner told me - "yes, Taiwan and China are becoming a problem, but we're a shop with integrity, we don't sell anything from there." I looked around and only saw Taiwan frames. 

Ons is - jy kan maar se uit gegooi daar! And this happened at more than 1 shop.

[/quote']

 

What's wrong with Taiwanese frames ?

 

 

Ever heard Giant, Ridley ??

 

 

Who is the biggest bike manufacturer in the world and pretty much created the carbon fibre bike market ?

 

Giant from Taiwan, who have been doing this for much longer than 7 years.

 

That LBS shop you went to must have been run by a person who has no clue whatsoever. 

 

These guys are the innovators (as opposed to just cheap labour) and have the best technology available to anyone who wants to make use of it (at a cost of course).

 

Made in Taiwan when it comes to carbon bikes is probably THE sticker ot have, especailly in the high end ones.  So much so that even Colnago relented and has 3 of it's frames made there. Yes, the labour costs are cheaper and that makes business sense but mostly, these guy KNOW carbon fibre better than most.

 

 

The only other company that has anything close to this tech. is Time, who make their own weave.

gianni2007-08-24 04:42:34

[AndreZA]

 

The only other company that has anything close to this tech. is Time' date=' who make their own weave.

[/quote']

 

Do you know the Time frames are made in Algiers or what ever African country in the north of Africa.

 

 

[gianni]

That's not what I said.

 

I said that Time makes their own carbon fibre weave.

 

The other brands all buy it in from Taiwan / China.

gianni2007-08-24 05:07:05