WTF is it with some retailers - wheel retailers

As a general rule, I like buying locally. It keeps money in the country, keeps the economy going, supports local business and people, and I have easy support if I need it.

However, it all comes down to a cost benefit thing. If the product is so much cheaper overseas, that if something went wrong I could post it back, yet still be better off, and have enough money left to buy a nice dinner, then it gets me thinking.

A few years ago, I bought a new audio interface. It was about $800 from the US, and my local audio shop, where I've been a customer for years, could do it for $900, for me. That seemed reasonable, so I bought it locally.

I'm currently looking at buying some new wheels, either in addition to, or instead of my current ones. The ones Im looking at are Team Dynamics ones, and we all know they are rather cheap in the UK and the US.

I contacted Tyrepitstop.com.au, and got a reply:

Hi Saad,

In regards to your enquiry, unfortunately we don’t import the 1.3 version into Australia but should be able to supply the 1.2 directly out of our “Sydney Warehouse” at this time. Below is the pricing on this wheel from our website!

http://www.tyrepitstop.com.au/vshop/shopexd.asp?id=815

Thanks again for your enquiry and we hope to hear back from you soon

Kind Regards
Grant Parker

I wrote back:

Can you do any better on the pricing? I can get them shipped from overseas for a fair a bit cheaper, but I like to buy local when I can. Whats the best price?

Saad


Hey Saad,

That sounds Great, you should go ahead with that deal!

Kind Regards

Grant Parker

LOL thats a first! You sure you cant do better? I'd prob get some cheapish tyres too, as these wheels are gonna be for track days. Are there any packages you can offer?

In terms of the wheels, could you do them for $1400 - so only 15% off or so. Like I said I like to buy local when I can!

Sorry


Kind Regards

Grant Parker



So from the above conversation, I made it clear I would like to buy it from him, yet he wasn't interested, and didnt even bother trying. I didnt tell him the price overseas, he just said go for it, its almost as if he didnt want my business. I would have been happy paying $1500 or so for the wheels, but not more than the $1700 it was coming to. Most salespeople will come back with a counter-offer, but in this case he didn't even try me!

Thoughts?

Saad

You'll find a lot of retailers are just sick of people trying to get them down to prices offered OS or online only stores (with no overheads) and they know they can't possibly match them so they don't bother trying any more. In many cases there isn't anything they can do about it as their cost is significantly higher here with taxes etc.

Yeah i understand that, but everyone has always told me what they CAN do. If I think its worth it, I buy it. Im sure he could have gotten down a bit lower, but his attitude was very defeatist on his end

I have been buying bike parts from overseas for years for BMX and mountain bikes and like you I always tried to buy local first.
The problem is that I can get it delivered to my door much cheaper that the local bike shops can buy it themselves from the Aussie supplier. At times it was complete bikes for less than half price and they were not some POS from China but quality US and European frames and components.
One shop owner is getting out of the business after 20 years for that exact reason.

Yep I know. I would buy bike parts all the time from PBK, and I worked at a bike store too - a dura ace groupset was more expensive wholesale than from PBK!

With something like wheels its a bit different though, as there is the huge shipping cost to factor in. Thats why I was looking at buying local

15 years sales here, daily basis, retailer. I think I can speak with some authority on this.

Let's say I have a customer wanting one of my $700 products and they are purely shopping on price. If that person walked in, said $600, the deal's yours right now, I'd probably do it because I have good stock, maybe even a little overstocked. No hassle, money in till, thanks for coming, next please. Now should I have low stock and maybe can't replace these from my supplier for a period of time, and an expectation I can sell these at full price it's "thanks but no thanks". I'd not be interested selling at anything below $700 because there's no point when i can sell all I have at the full RRP. You could almost put a case forward that when I'm down to the last one, the price could go above RRP.

Your wheel guy may have a couple of sets only and knows, from his sales history, these will be sold in a few days at full cost. Hence, the curt reply.

So the factors would be stock, replacement availability, competition (does the guy down the street have lots) but also time invested in the sale, which I'll explain here. In the first scenario, the customer is costing me about 3 minutes time, but what if the customer came in, and I spent an hour on a busy saturday with her/him? I'm sacrificing time spent on other customers, other sales, so the longer it goes on, the more I 'need' to convert that into a sale, so my willingness to do a deal increases. Your approach had nothing invested by the saleperson so nothing lost either and so they can move on to someone else.

Bit OT:
You also have to consider the retailers market position. Are they a pile em high, flog em at any price joint or are they trying to be (or currently) known for good service, after sales and a place where you get consistent pricing? The danger with discount retailing is that you're conditoning consumers to expect less each time. You walk off with your $1500 deal thinking you're king shit only to find out another forum member got them at $1400. How'd you feel now? You're not thinking about the $200 saving, you're thinking about the $100 you missed out on. Hence, discount retailers play a very fragile game plan. Plus most of them have over inflated prices to satisfy the ability to negotiate a deal - if you've shopped at Good Guys or Kathmandu, you'll see what I mean. Kathmandu for example, released it's first ever results (public listed now) and showed 62% gross margin. That's with all their 50, 60, 70% off sales! How'd they do it? By selling only their own label where they can set whatever stratospheric RRP they like and then halve it. David Jones for example, a 4 times bigger company with much bigger buying power, manages to get 'only' 40% because it has a variety of labels and not just their own, so the RRP's are kept real by other retailers who sell those labels. Bit off topic saad, cos i know you were comparing to internet/os pricing so my earlier comments are the more relevant.

Appreciate your input Mike.

Reminds of the time when i worked at Rebel sport, some kids came in to try on some $300 footy boots. They wanted me to get them down, and I said these are quite expensive, you sure you dont wanna look at some other stuff too, they said "Nah its ok, I can get them online a lot cheaper, Im just trying them on here and gonna order online..."

Thankyou and goodbye.

Its unethical to waste a salespersons time, try the product, then buy it online.

Your point of the time invested by salesperson was a technique in the book 'you can negotiate anything', but the warning was this method would mean you are hated.

At the bike store, there was one guy who would come in every week, waste like 40 mins, and never bought anything. Eventually learnt to ignore him.

In this case, for the wheels, I just thought that maybe he would offer me his best price, as things like wheels etc are often negotiated on. I found it weird he didnt even offer me what he could do, because I've never just accepted the advertised price of things as set, unless we're talking about small ticket items etc.

I too can speak with a lot of Authority on this topic having been involved in retail for a looooooong time across several industries.

One mention of ebay or buying something from overseas and you have lost my attention. If you want to negotiate a price establish a rapport with the salesperson first. If they like you, you never know, you might get a good deal. Hitting him out of the blue with "i can get it cheaper elsewhere" will more often than not end up with the "well get it elsewhere" response.

One thing I always loved doing was when someone offered a cheaper price I would respond with a slightly more expensive price. ie. "youre annoying me"
Funnily enough that actually resulted in quite a lot of sales. I think people enjoyed the humour in it perhaps.

as a consumer for over 35 years i can speak with a high degree of authority.... price is not everything.. after sales service is. Acceptable risk on any purchase needs to be taken into account especially if its RTB. Something like tyres and wheels, less likely to require after sales support, low risk item. A new car stereo though.. higher risk of failure, possible no warranty coverage outside of country of original purchase or rtb costing is not covered.

Reminds me of how myself and two other mates bought hockey sticks from a store in the UK. Apparently it costs 50% less to make a hockey stick IN Australia, ship it to the UK, have them sell it and ship it back to Australia.

Didn't make any sense but sure did make for cheap sticks haha

Yep, all my electronics items are bought locally.

When I asked for a price, he pointed me to the website, and I made it quite clear I wanted to buy it locally if he could do me a good price. I just find it frustrating, and I cant really build a rapport via email. I called them several times, yet no one picked up

yeah, but you can see if say he sold 5 sets a week, his supplier had a glitch and can't get any more into aus for three months, he knows other locals are out of stock too, and this is his last one, then he'll get full price for them. Absolutely no need to get into a conversation.

Now personally, I would, because I'd try to convince you of all the above, put doubt in your mind about buying from overseas and you'd end up buying them from me anyway

A good seller, and great service, is when you can start the conversation between seller and buyer. Both parties can learn a lot. For example, a customer may come in, driven on price for an xyz but if they're prepared to be open it may be that I can get a more appropriate product for them that's much cheaper/better anyway. You have to weigh up, in most cases, the person behind the counter may not be perfect but the chances are they know more about the product than man off the street!

iluvbrownale said:

but the chances are they know more about the product than man off the street!

Click to expand...

I would argue that for a lot of people today, this is no longer the case, given the information age and all. Before I buy anything, I research it, so I now know more about the product than the salesman. It's happened to me before too, where a customer knows more about a product than I do. I need to have breadth of knowledge, which means depth isn't all that possible a lot of the time.

I think he just wasn't interested in selling the wheels (Team Dynamics), AFAIK, they are the only supplier in Aus

sounds like he's made the choice pretty easy for you.

indeed he has