Dear Halfords
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Flossyrockstar
Dirt Disciple
Re: Re:
No, i used to work for a company that imported product from china and know how much we used to pay per item!mattr":gkatkgo0 said:
And?
Still a wild guess unless you were importing BSOs. In exactly the condition that Halfords do. From the same place.
I know the range of "profitability" for Chinese manufactured goods ranges from a hell of a lot down to barely worth it, depending on complexity, packaging, import duties, materials. And so on. (It's not really profitability. Because there are masses of other costs involved too)
BTW, do BSOs still get made in China? Last I heard Vietnam and Thailand were taking the lead.
Still a wild guess unless you were importing BSOs. In exactly the condition that Halfords do. From the same place.
I know the range of "profitability" for Chinese manufactured goods ranges from a hell of a lot down to barely worth it, depending on complexity, packaging, import duties, materials. And so on. (It's not really profitability. Because there are masses of other costs involved too)
BTW, do BSOs still get made in China? Last I heard Vietnam and Thailand were taking the lead.
doctorstewie
Senior Retro Guru
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Certainly when I worked for them ( Halfords) the real markup was in accessories. Strangely, although the staff in my store knew our stuff on bikes ( a few of us, anyway ) we didn't charge much for repairs and fitting accessories, which I suspect is where a lot of profit comes from these days. As far as bike sales go, your markup was around 20 - 30 percent mostly negated by warranty, PDI and six week service costs.
cce":14ccym13 said:
Hope it's better steel than the second last oil filter on my MGF... the paint was thicker than the steel, leading to a rapid loss of sump contents when it burst a month or two after fitting!
That was the first time I'd ever seen "Made in Tunisia" on anything, and I hope it's the last...
Flossyrockstar
Dirt Disciple
mattr":2eniad2i said:
Well I bow to your superior corporate knowledge!
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Re:
I work on the door at a club in Torquay for one of my jobs. I got chatting to a lad last night that came in for a drink wearing his Halfords jacket. He works in the bike department of the Torquay store. He very kindly offered to fix my bikes for me - I said it's ok thanks, but didn't explain why.
He then went to get his bike that must have been locked up round the corner. It was a fairly basic heavy, but ok, alloy Carrera so I kept it polite with him and said that's nice, etc. I then showed him a piccy of one of my 8 year olds bikes that is worth at least double what his bike is. He starting taking the p~ss out of the RS Rebas that are on there saying they only had about 80mm of travel and his bikes forks had 240mm! "240mm, do you know how much that is?" He replied "yes", that's what they are 'cos him and his mate have cut down one of the elastomers (or something!) "Yeah, but 240mm"..."I don't think you've got that much travel there"..."don't you think the slider will hit the crown after after about half of that?" He replied with "no" 'cos that's what his mate said. I tried to explain it to him but I was wasting my time. What sort of idiots are they employing over there - peoples lives depend on their workshop skills and they can't even get the basics right!
Well, I feel better now that's off my chest! :facepalm:
I work on the door at a club in Torquay for one of my jobs. I got chatting to a lad last night that came in for a drink wearing his Halfords jacket. He works in the bike department of the Torquay store. He very kindly offered to fix my bikes for me - I said it's ok thanks, but didn't explain why.
He then went to get his bike that must have been locked up round the corner. It was a fairly basic heavy, but ok, alloy Carrera so I kept it polite with him and said that's nice, etc. I then showed him a piccy of one of my 8 year olds bikes that is worth at least double what his bike is. He starting taking the p~ss out of the RS Rebas that are on there saying they only had about 80mm of travel and his bikes forks had 240mm! "240mm, do you know how much that is?" He replied "yes", that's what they are 'cos him and his mate have cut down one of the elastomers (or something!) "Yeah, but 240mm"..."I don't think you've got that much travel there"..."don't you think the slider will hit the crown after after about half of that?" He replied with "no" 'cos that's what his mate said. I tried to explain it to him but I was wasting my time. What sort of idiots are they employing over there - peoples lives depend on their workshop skills and they can't even get the basics right!
Well, I feel better now that's off my chest! :facepalm:
Osella
Senior Retro Guru
120mm travel, x2 fork legs = 240mm travel, duh! 
:twisted:
That does equate with the "full suspension must be better" (Trax vs Islabike) and similar arguments..
All comes back to Johnnyboy's original point that it's a case of trying to sell 'more' rather than getting the basics right to ensure that none of the moving parts fall apart/sieze, as opposed to simply adding more moving parts unnecessarily..
It's a very simple solution to get 'back to basics' but then again you will only sell one or two bikes that way, instead of a new one each year to the same customers as the previous one is now in the dump.
If somebody were to 'Prius' the environmental impact of BSO cycling however, I suspect each child on a BSO would need to ride to school/work every day until they're 85 to repay the impact of going through 5 BSO's in their childhood.
:twisted: That does equate with the "full suspension must be better" (Trax vs Islabike) and similar arguments..
All comes back to Johnnyboy's original point that it's a case of trying to sell 'more' rather than getting the basics right to ensure that none of the moving parts fall apart/sieze, as opposed to simply adding more moving parts unnecessarily..
It's a very simple solution to get 'back to basics' but then again you will only sell one or two bikes that way, instead of a new one each year to the same customers as the previous one is now in the dump.
If somebody were to 'Prius' the environmental impact of BSO cycling however, I suspect each child on a BSO would need to ride to school/work every day until they're 85 to repay the impact of going through 5 BSO's in their childhood.
