Brexit cost bicycle business £250,000 in two months

Rich_cb wrote:

Strangely, stories of UK brands expanding are never accompanied by any mention of Brexit. Sigma and Ribble have both announced expansion plans this year. Both businesses will have seen their EU competitors placed at a distinct disadvantage post brexit. 

Was it the dastardly EU that was preventing Sigma and Ribble from expanding in the past? EU directive Si-Rib-267-98376, otherwise known as the limit British bike sales bill.

 Or could it be, no bear with me, something else going on in the bike market that enables this expansion - more people buying bikes over the past year maybe?

Of course the European competitors no doubt have been placed at a disadvantage when selling to the UK (one country), just as Sigma and Ribble have been placed at a disadvantage when selling to the EU (27 countries). So the advantage when selling in the UK is offset by the disadvantage in the EU.

But don't worry, they can sell to Vietnam. Well, they always could, but they can still sell to Vietnam. So Brexit's not all bad - is that one of the advantages you keep refusing to name?

Rich_cb wrote:

For some unfathomable reason road.cc never even mentioned brexit when reporting the news of their expansion.

That's because they are expanding in spite of Brexit not because. Do keep up old boy

Rich_cb wrote:

Yet when Brompton complained of the difficulties they were currently facing, of which brexit was mentioned as an aside, guess what road.cc chose as their headline?

Cos it's relevant.

They mentioned Brexit and COVID because he mentioned Brexit and COVID . He barely mentioned COVID either throughout the rest but you didn't seem to mind that. Admittedly, I don't have an FT sub to be able to read the original article though. 

And as for Ribble and Sigma expanding ( and don't forget Rapha), where in the original  articles do they state that they can only expand now due to the freedoms of Brexit?  If it was in there AND road.cc don't mention it then I will join you in berating them. 

It was the headline I objected to. Brexit was mentioned as an aside in the article yet chosen as the headline. Why?

It's misleading and borderline dishonest.

It's not necessarily the freedoms of Brexit, more the impact on their competitors. Any sensible analysis of the situation would include Brexit but it was not even mentioned.

Brexit is given undue prominence in negative stories and ignored altogether in positive stories when it's clearly relevant.

Quote:

It's not necessarily the freedoms of Brexit, more the impact on their competitors. Any sensible analysis of the situation would include Brexit but it was not even mentioned.

Brexit is given undue prominence in negative stories and ignored altogether in positive stories when it's clearly relevant.

But how can it be relevant? Ribble have raised their prices between December and January. Is that normal for them? Is it because they need extra costs due to extra costs incurred since Brexit? Is it supply and demand? Or is it to pay for a brand new showroom? They have also just carried on from when they were bought by Cap Investors back in 2015 with new bikes, new showrooms in fancy places (Birmingham Mailbox and Bluewater) and budgeting to buy sponsored articles like on this self same Road.cc with the video series on buying a bike to suit the needs last year. 

And as Sigma, they had significant investment this year but as most of what they sell is  imported items anyway with now price increases, why is their sucess down to Brexit? And like I mentioned, all Road.cc does is accumalate stories from other sources which happens to be about bikes, they are not the FT or other business papers which need economical analysis. So if the original sources or even the companies themselves don't indicate the growth is down to Brexit effing up competitors, why should Road CC make that analysis.

And I do like how you state look at the good news here because Brexit is good enough to screw up other businesses these companies compete with. So surely it is a down side of brexit and not a plus side neccesarily that other companies are less competitive? Still I suppose it decides on which side of the coin you fall on.

How can it not be relevant?

For Ribble many of their direct competitors cannot sell to the UK as easily or have to charge more to do so.

This can only be of benefit to Ribble's market share.

For Sigma the situation is similar. As they sell mainly imported items they fall in to the double tariff trap when exporting to the EU, that is they have to pay tariffs twice on each item, but their competitors face the same problem when exporting to the UK.

Sigma have a lot of EU competitors so this will have a very positive impact on their UK market share.

As both companies are expanding it seems as if this is having a positive overall effect.

By ignoring the positive effects of Brexit and concentrating purely on the negative effects road.cc are letting down their readers.

But again, you are stating these are positive effects because other companies are experiencing negative effects due to the B word. One is supposedly benefitting because the others are not.

You are fast to rubbish any story with negative effects stating it is not brexit related but this, that and t'other even when the company involved states they are affected by it. Yet when the company states we have built a new showroom which could be because of lots of reasons AND the company doesn't state it is because of the boom of Brexit, you are adamant that must be the real reason. 

And even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and they have increased because of Brexit, it is not benefitting me as the bikes are not getting cheaper are they? They aren't passing savings to the customer and instead can charge what they like as they face less competition overall. I know have less choice as Canyon, Trek, Giant, Specialised are all more expensive as well. 
 

You're misrepresenting my position there.

I'm asking for balance.

The article on Frog bikes seemed to put a number of unrelated costs into the 'brexit-related' costs basket in order to make a nice headline.

The article on Brompton took a passing mention of Brexit and made it a headline.

Positive articles don't seem to take the same approach.

How can a reduction in competition be anything but beneficial for Sigma /Ribble?

Why is Brexit not mentioned at all?

The only plausible explanation is bias.

Bikes which are imported directly to the UK will have no brexit related additional costs. Ribble will still have to compete with Giant etc. It's their EU based equivalents that will face increased costs eg Canyon/Rose.

Well blame Frog bikes if there is a misbalance as they decided to go to Wales Online and state we have had to spend 250k on additional costs AND our valued customers on the continent are suffering as well. Why blame road.cc for repearting the same things?
Yes you have a point on Brompton but they also mentioned Covid in the same headline and the specific mention of Covid was along the same lines as well. So they picked two points out of the article which are currently big news even if not much was covered in it. 

But you seem to be missing the point that Road.cc parrot other articles / press releases so unless the sources state "Brexit has had a positive effect because......" then why would they deduce it has had an effect.

Ribble have expanded significantly since 2015 when they were bought by an investment firm and have beem expanding significantly for the last few years so why does Brexit have to be the main reason they opened a new showroom. Was it Brexit when they had a massive boost in sales in 2016 or as they state then, the success of team GB at Rio Olympics?

And sigma has also been expanding their brand alot the last few years and managed to employ Matt Stephens direct from GCN to be their main advertising Spokesman in 2018 or so well before knowledge on how Brexit would effect them was known. 

But surely the postive effects will not actually be known for at least a year where the bad are instant due to new import and export rules that are in place. Ribble for example have already lost money on bikes but built up Customer goodwill due to the VAT issues on exports to the continent on shipments after January 1st. So when they can announce the massive profits next year or so and they say "this only occurred because Brexit was so good for us", then you can be smug that you are right. However if they release "despite Brexit we managed to make massive profits", then direct your anger at Ribble if Road.cc parrot it. 

In fairness I didn't realise that road.cc had literally cut and pasted that article from another website.

The charge of misleading their readers should really be directed at Wales online.

Still would be nice if road.cc applied any sort of editorial standard to an article before shamelessly lifting it.

The point with the Brompton article was that covid was directly or indirectly the cause of much of their woes. Brexit had virtually nothing to do with it. Yet there it was in the headline.

I didn't say that Brexit was the main reason for Sigma or Ribble's recent success. I said that it has to have been beneficial for them from a market share point of view.

If Brexit has even a minor role in a firm's struggles it is given huge prominence in the write up yet if brexit plays a similarly significant role in a firm's success it receives no mention at all.

All I'm asking for is balance.

But how is it misleading in with Wales Online. The owners have said that they have had to spend 250k in the last two months because of Brexit related costs AND mentioned that their own customers in the EU which was 47% of there sales have had to take hits because of the changes made by Brexit. Both issues not there before 31st Dec, now there since? So surely if there is any misleading, it is done by Frog directors but being as they know what they have had to spend and not spend, is it misleading?

And I love how you state 250k unscheduled hit as minor? Maybe to your multi million pound daily dealings it is piffle but to them it is last years profits but they could well be misleading us.

I doubt any company who deal with the EU will be able to say it hasn't caused unnecessary costs and problems. However currently the only ones who can honestly state Brexit has been profitable these last few monthes will be the ones started up to "facilitate" paperwork and "advise" on all the new rulings etc. (and of course all the ones who play stock market games etc who always make a killing on the misfortune of others). 

However in a years time I expect the ones like Ribble etc can point to Brexit on their profits if they sell their bikes to customers who would have gone to Canyon or Rose. But it will still be upto them to make a point of it in any press release. As mentioned if they do, and Road.cc ignore that bit, I will side with you on any accusations then. 

I'm still not sure on Sigmas boost as they are still competing against most of the other major online sellers like Rutland, Wibble, Tredz etc. I can only see bike-Components.de being affected (chosen as they always come up when I search online for bits but others can be subjected here) but I suppose it will depend on how much Sigma used to ship to the EU compared to how much Bike-components shipped to the UK to see if it is better or worse.

I didn't state that £250k was minor.

If you look at the quote from the article, which I included in my very first post in this thread, it implies that the £250k is due, in part, to "growing component costs and a huge rise in shipping fees."

It implies that these are included in the "brexit-related" costs.

That seems fundamentally dishonest.

Well email Jerry and ask him? But if the article is correct and they have had to spend 250k this calendar year by Feb, and something happened on January 1st which wasn't there December 30th, then what else could it be?

It doesn't bother me that much to start emailing random people.

The article mentions shipping fees and component costs then implies these are included in the £250k figure.

That's the issue I have with it. Component costs are almost certainly not brexit related yet they seem to be including them in this total then blaming it all on brexit.

Rich_cb wrote:

In fairness I didn't realise that road.cc had literally cut and pasted that article from another website.

...

would be nice if road.cc applied any sort of editorial standard to an article before shamelessly lifting it.

Didn't think you were new to the site. About 90% of the articles are like that.

That implies that only 10% are on a rolling 'update' cycle...

9.5% - there is the occasional original piece.

Rich_cb wrote:

How can it not be relevant? For Ribble many of their direct competitors cannot sell to the UK as easily or have to charge more to do so. This can only be of benefit to Ribble's market share. For Sigma the situation is similar. As they sell mainly imported items they fall in to the double tariff trap when exporting to the EU, that is they have to pay tariffs twice on each item, but their competitors face the same problem when exporting to the UK. Sigma have a lot of EU competitors so this will have a very positive impact on their UK market share. As both companies are expanding it seems as if this is having a positive overall effect. By ignoring the positive effects of Brexit and concentrating purely on the negative effects road.cc are letting down their readers.

That's a curious way of thinking about whether an effect is positive or negative. So the fact that some companies are suffering due to the negative effects, you consider it a positive that a minority are experiencing less competition?

Brexit has put up new trade barriers between the UK and the EU.

This harms some businesses and helps others.

If Frog really does have to pull out of some EU markets you can guarantee that another firm will take their place.

This will be a negative for Frog and a positive for whoever takes their place, La Grenouille perhaps?

When companies like Rose pull out of the UK their market share has to go somewhere, companies like Ribble are well placed to take it.

When we read of Ribble or Sigma expanding there never seems to be any mention of the potential brexit effect.

Yet when we read of Cotic or Frog struggling brexit is mentioned prominently. In the case of this Frog article the Brexit effect seems to have been hugely exaggerated.

The issue with that is that if their expansion is largely due to trade barriers then we suffer from less choice as consumers. I wouldn't really classify that as a benefit to us despite the increase in some trade which is likely offset against greater difficulties with UK exports.

I would agree.

Any barriers to trade harm consumers.

But they can benefit businesses/producers.

Rich_cb wrote:

I would agree.

Any barriers to trade harm consumers.

But they can benefit businesses/producers.

Only the ones who aren't significantly exporting to the EU...
So the elusive benefit of Brexit is that it punishes UK companies that primarily rely on exports to our closest trading partners?

I see....

Leaving the EU to become a self governing nation again was NOT about the cost of your bicycle parts.

Every single Brexit related comments thread has this claim repeated ad nauseam.

The very same threads usually contain multiple examples of brexit related benefits.

So either you haven't bothered reading around this subject at all, or you're lying.

Rich_cb wrote:

Every single Brexit related comments thread has this claim repeated ad nauseam.

The very same threads usually contain multiple examples of brexit related benefits.

So either you haven't bothered reading around this subject at all, or you're lying.

Please name one of the multiple benefits.
There you go, have asked.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Added to the dozens of benefits that have already been discussed ad nauseum, we can add another one: how about the tens of thousands of bodies that would have been piled up now if we'd been forced into the EU's vaccine incompetence?

"Dozens of benefits"? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Do you REALLY want to have a conversation about Covid deaths? The UK has one of the worst in the world.

If you actually want to look at comparable statistics then may I suggest you start here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarri...

The UK was the worst performing EU country during the first wave but one of the better performing countries during the second wave.

Over the whole of 2020 the UK had the 7th highest excess mortality in the EU.

The UK, thankfully, appears to have been spared the worst of the third wave currently affecting much of Europe.

Further analysis after the third wave has subsided should give a true reflection of how each country managed the pandemic.

I would expect the UK to be one of the better performing countries during the third wave.

On top of the 100,000+ caused by Johnson's incompetence? We would still have had the option to use the EU vaccine service or not. We could still have run our own vaccine service. Just as most of the "benefits" from Brexit are things we could always have done while still in the EU. 

UK authorities can (potentially) more effectively enforce Marine Conservation Zones, restricting fishing and protecting the seabed from bottom trawling and other damaging practices. Apparently this enforcement was quite difficult whilst we were part of the EU.

Still doesn't explain the overall enthusiasm of the UK fishing industry for Brexit, but to me it feels like spotting what could be some loose change in the wreckage.

We can also set our own import tariffs.

We have set (slightly) lower tariffs for many bike parts than the EU. Minimal impact economically but of interest to this forum.

We have reduced import tariffs for some foodstuffs, most noticeably cane sugar, reducing costs for UK consumers.

We have the ability to set our own VAT levels allowing us to, finally, remove VAT from women's sanitary products.

We can now unilaterally ban the export of live animals, something that animal welfare groups have been campaigning for tirelessly and that was impossible whilst in the EU.

I hope @GMBasix can read the above, their 5 year quest is finally over, can't imagine how relieved they'll be.