Buy from NZ? I tried but come on...

[Katman]

That's a Katman mistake.

Katman doesn't make mistakes.

[warewolf]

Yup, kathmandu usually sells ggod quality products..
But at their "1/2 price sale"? = normal retail price at any other place.

No, they sell mid-quality products. The gear is no longer as good as the likes of Macpac, Mountain Designs, The North Face, Columbia etc etc; those days are long, long gone. Tramping boots are about the last thing that's decent quality (or were 10 years ago - that's probably changed now, too).

At full price, their inferior products don't stack up against the premium competition. On sale, the price matches the quality so it's worth buying.

On topic... Kathmandu used to be a serious outdoor / tramping specialist shop. They've gone mainstream with a huge range of cheaply-made "everyday" and car-camping gear (and gimmicky unnecessary crap) targeting the masses, in order to increase their sales volumes. Unfortunately I can't see the motorcycle industry being able to do the same thing. Bicycle shops: yes. Motorbicycle shops: no. About the only way would be if (when) the price of fuel keeps climbing, and ppl ditch their cars in favour of scooters... this started to happen 2-3 years ago when go-juice cracked $2/L or thereabouts, but it wasn't just motorbike shops, everyman and his dog started selling scooters.

[Ocean1]

Read the quote you took from RT again. He didn't say private importers were directly penalising retailers. They are "effectively penalised" by the government's lack of consistency in charging duty on private imports.

Wrong.

effectively penalised by many private imports effectively avoiding all that?

But knowing Robert's not silly enough to blame anyone for avoiding oportunistic and unreasonable duties and taxes I'd say you're right with regard to where he indended to indicate the blame lies.

Why don't you ask him?

[warewolf]

The majority of my packages from overseas have a total cost of under NZ$300 so we are only talking about $40 or so worth of GST and it would cost most of that to get me to pay it.

The govt only mandates collection when taxes reach $50. That used to mean a $400 limit at 12.5% GST, but now it's only $333.34 at 15% GST.

[Brian d marge]

Unfortunatley its not that simple, and most do not realise the effect of lowering your price has on mainitaing total gross margins. Pretty simple to explain on the back of a piece of paper using your example...

Say the landed cost in NZ for the part is indeed $210 and the shop sells 10 at $600, that means they make a total of $3900 from the deal ($390 per part).

If they were instead try and attract more business by lowering the price to a far more competitive $300 as you say, they now only make $90 per sale would need to sell an extra 34 parts JUST TO BE EXACTLY WHERE THEY ARE NOW (selling only 10). Even if they captured all of the 30 "missed" sales online from being at $600, they are still better off letting them go.

No matter what the business, it is a fact that if you have a standard margin of 30%, and you drop your price by 10%, you have to sell over 2x the volume to be any better off than where you were. Hence lowering prices to compete has a huge impact on bottom line and bikes shops close. Sad but true, the market always wins.

I can see the numbers above working ok but Call me simplistic

landed price + overheads + profit margin = sales price

If the sales price is not what the market will bear ,,, you going to have a problem shifting stock and with the cost in stocking that part eating away at the profit ,,,,

I can see what you are saying , one part high price or ten parts low price , not so much work with one part than there is with 10

But it strikes me that there isnt a lot of money in the motorcycle market these days , so you would have to be very price conscious or Service orientated ( I have a feeling that says a lot of people choose by price rather than service,,,,)

So yes while the Maths does indeed stack up, I cant see parts making a profit ( which I assume is what was being inferred )

but on the other hand there cant be any Justification to Some of the prices charged for some parts ( I can only say for Honda CR parts, )

but again , some of the prices charged when I was in NZ a couple of years ago weren't that bad, in fact pretty darn good actually )

Stephen

[imdying]

If they were instead try and attract more business by lowering the price to a far more competitive $300 as you say, they now only make $90 per sale would need to sell an extra 34 parts JUST TO BE EXACTLY WHERE THEY ARE NOW (selling only 10). Even if they captured all of the 30 "missed" sales online from being at $600, they are still better off letting them go.

Except for one small thing... at that price they're unlikely to sell even one.

[Houseman]

Except for one small thing... at that price they're unlikely to sell even one.

It was more the principle I was trying to illustrate, the figures are meaningless really.

You are right though, I am in the business of selling patent protected products and the day after the patent expires there are at least two copies, a year later there are 10. You can bitch and moan all you like about losing margin but your point is proved irrevocably (sp?) in that case, if you don't lower your price close to the new "normal", you aint selling nothing. I have seen companies in our situation be arrogant and say "we have the branded product, you pay full price". Million dollar products become worth a few grand within 12 months.

I guess my view on all this is I feel really very sorry for the bike shops, I really do. But it is what it is and the game is changing fast. Time to "get busy living or get busy dying" as the movie said...

Good book on the subject of change if anyone has read "Who Moved my Cheese"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese%3F

[Brian d marge]

It was more the principle I was trying to illustrate, the figures are meaningless really.

You are right though, I am in the business of selling patent protected products and the day after the patent expires there are at least two copies, a year later there are 10. You can bitch and moan all you like about losing margin but your point is proved irrevocably (sp?) in that case, if you don't lower your price close to the new "normal", you aint selling nothing. I have seen companies in our situation be arrogant and say "we have the branded product, you pay full price". Million dollar products become worth a few grand within 12 months.

I guess my view on all this is I feel really very sorry for the bike shops, I really do. But it is what it is and the game is changing fast. Time to "get busy living or get busy dying" as the movie said...

Good book on the subject of change if anyone has read "Who Moved my Cheese"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese%3F

I keep trying to think of how bike shops can and will survive . Yes supplying toys to the rich will work during boom times , but as the market dries up ...

Scooters MAY be an answer what with the price of petrol, and of course the leisure market , MX , Racing , trials etc. but I dont see that being a mainstay ( as in parts , and apparel )
I keep coming back to the same old nut shell, supplying people with leisure . As in full back up so they can enjoy the past time of motorbikes ( with the back room at break even )

Im happy to be very wrong , this I assume would mean that the M/c indusrty is alive and well in NZ ....

I dont think the Mc industry is dead , but it is changing , quite fast ..

Stephen

[Smifffy]

Maybe part of the problem is the change in demographic of the market as discussed elsewhere on here.

The 40+ biker who probably has more than one mode of transport, and can only afford a bike because for the previous 20 years had been rather canny when it comes to spending $$, have been through a couple of recessions, possibly been laid off more than once and know full well that there is no business in New Zealand that believes in loyalty, unless it is from the customer base.

[Viscount Montgomery]

Ah yes, patents.. Take the well known obscenely priced racetech emulators as an example, one of motorcyclings' most lousy pricing rip-offs from out of this last decade. A magnet for the various scurrying grifters and middlemen who will always shamelessly grasp at any half-chance to pilfer a profit for themselves from someone else's product.. Actually a good effective little gadget that smooths the big bumps out nicely from your old damper forks, but, outrageously, on close inspection, you'll find that they're they're just a $7.36c hunk of brass that you could piss-easily spin up to shape with a lathe and file in your own carshed from scrap-metal. And with a 72 cent spring and 31 cent bolt added. And having been disgustingly sold worldwide at hundreds of dollars a pair for years.

But, DIY kiwi ingenuity is no longer acceptable and ain't kosher or politically correct in todays modern world, and not leaving that sort of thing for the self-appointed experts should be frowned upon.. The experts say so.. So forget all that kiwi DIY in the carshed stuff sorry, those days have been well and truly stomped on by the people who "know better." "For the better."

Now the racetech emulator patent has expired there seems to be various other brands surfacing now, but you can bet your bottom dollar the propagandists who clutched and held the original patent for all that time will still try insisting and telling the gullible that the "alternative" brands of emulator are all nasty shit-junk that won't work and won't last - or "they're not as good as ours." In their minds it'll still be legitimate to keep ripping the public on price. Even though you can guarantee the "one brand only" propagandists have never even used the other stuff - in other words you won't find one iota of fucken proof that the new emulator brands are shit, and the suckered types will probably still dumbly shell-out big bucks on the "established" pricing-rip product out there without question, all based on very sleazy advice they hear from the middlemen who harbor hidden agendas...

It's a dog devour dog no-holds-barred business world alright, pity the inexperienced and the gullible as the "elite" darting-eyed money-takers all sit back briskly rubbing their palms, sneering and laughing as to how simple it all is to take the candy from all the clueless babies out there.....

[Mort]

You are a bitter twisted fuck VM.

[short-circuit]

You are a bitter twisted fuck VM.

"He knows too much"

[imdying]

racetech emulators

Actually a good effective little gadget that smooths the big bumps out nicely from your old damper forks, but, outrageously, on close inspection, you'll find that they're they're just a $7.36c hunk of brass that you could piss-easily spin up to shape with a lathe and file in your own carshed from scrap-metal.

That's not what I'm paying for if I buy those. I'm paying for someone to design it correctly in the first place. Sure I could make one, but am I making the right thing?

I don't much care about that though, I just want to be treated like Hondas other customers... they harp on about being a global brand, but they don't put their money where their mouth is.

[clint640]

. But it would be a rare purchase where the cost of GST would make it not worth importing the item. .

Exactly. I've got about $1K worth of genuine KTM parts on order from the USA at present, & I'm going to pay the full whack of GST with a smile on my face, because I'll still have almost $600 left in my pocket compared with buying the same parts locally. In the current market KTM NZ have a simple choice; they can make a little money off me, or they can make none at all, they are choosing the latter.

Local retailers, & those in Oz kicking up a stink at present, obviously have little idea of the reality of the situation if they think getting GST applied to low value imports will help them. Most people don't bother importing stuff to save 15%, it's when it's more like 25-50% that the consumer cries enough.

Cheers
Clint

[R-Soul]

Are you serious?

Where the fuck did you pluck that sort of mark-up figure from???

I was not referreing to bike shops in particular. So nothing personal. I was referring to the NZ suppply chains in general.

I have tried to take a product to market before in NZ. A small plastic thing that costs less than 70c to land here in NZ, ends up costing some $10-15 by the time it retails in hardware stores. The supply chain nearly made the entire product concept unfeasible.

You are looking at 150%- 300% (and more) markups along the line, from distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. And that with me making 50%, and taking all the risk. This is apparently standard fare. I call it price gouging.

I still have no idea how the $2 shops do it. They must pretty much get their stuff free (or damn close). And have a single entity that does everything in the line, from shipping to retail. And work on the narrowest of margins. They are DEFINITELY NOT using the standard NZ distributors and large size retailers.