How comes in Europe (especially German or Benelux online shops) you kinda get everything way cheaper than in Taiwan even though vat is 5 percent vs 19 percent or higher.
And that includes many made in Taiwan products. SRAM is mainly made in Taiwan but 20-30 percent more expensive here.
Buy from canyon (made in Taiwan) and pay 10-15 percent more. Still many people buy canyon because they feel it’s better value in the high end than giant or merida, the only Taiwanese internat brands not ripping you off.
I have seen SRAM pricing list for b2b small shop that was soo high it is cheaper to buy from German online stores on list price reimport to Taiwan…
I feel it’s a general problem in b2c that is terribly inefficient in China and Taiwan. How comes so much made in Taiwan or made in China is cheaper in Europe as soon as it’s a bit higher end (meaning not cheap stuff like youbike quality or worse the ofo or whatever bikes ending up in gutters everywhere). Take fruits or vegetables, as soon as you buy them in a supermarket in China or Taiwan it’s cheaper to buy them exported and in a supermarket in Europe…
Even worse of course for imported products into taiwan. My latest crazyness. Trying to get favero assioma dual (Shi) in Taiwan. It’s the cheapest reliable power meter for cycling pedals, yet in Taiwan it costs around 21.000 ntd on shopee in the cheapest shop. Vs only around 14.000 in German online shops once you assume 5 percent vat for Germany. That’s a 50 percent up pricing in Taiwan.
Even worse for mountain bikes, though I can understand shops would not want to stock up with the little demand here. Walked into some shops in Taichung knowing to be on the cheaper end and they stock sometimes 5 year old bikes at high high price.
In the end you kinda end up buying everything in Europe or sometimes (less often) from USA. Why buy in Taiwan if your local dealer is twice the price and doesn’t have most things in stock anyhow?
Perhaps because cycling is a cliquey boutique sport for anyone over scooter license age? That said, I’ve purchased a couple of bikes here for less than their MSRP in N. America.
Volume of sales I suspect. There are no doubt Distributors in Europe who import 1000 SRAM at a time and spread it around the countries that they supply. Taiwan of course doesn’t have the population to want 1000 sets, let alone even 100 maybe.
If you want a good deal for cycling related items in Taiwan you need to stick with domestic brands. It doesn’t matter that SRAM is made in Taiwan. It’s a US company, it will get manufactured then export/import tax applies.
Giant, Merida, Performer, CST/Maxxis tires, Wellgo/xpedo pedals, Kinlin rims, Pillar/richman spokes, Uno bars/stems. These companies are where you can get a good deal.
Some of the Kinlin rims are the absolute best of alloy rims, go for their Niobium aluminium ones, and get a set of soft brake pads to prevent destroying them if you have rim brakes.
I just ordered a replacement rim in T’chung, and cut up my old one. Super light but strong.
Like your overseas brands in other industries, Taiwan companies always mark up imported brands like crazy. There’s always the factor of import fees, but bottom line is, bosses are greedy and want your money.
maxxis - seems to be no cheaper here. Or do they have some taiwan only models of high quality? Now Maxxis certainly isn’t producing their tires sold outside of Taiwan in Taiwan.
Cheapest quality tires for road bikes seem to be Continental in Taiwan. Tires usually all come for Malysia, Vietnam or so.
As for Perfomer or especially Aster - yeah decent price/quality ratio. Good quality manufacturing but it’s easy to tell that they aren’t up to date on geometries and new developments. I right now ride a Aster SLK that I bought second hand - big annoying thing - they really managed to build an endurance bike with aero looks, but only 25mm tire compatibilty. I couldn’t find much with disc brakes on the second hand market in Taiwan. I would have preferred discs (also for not destroying the rims). As for Gusto - Taiwans No. non export brand - they are mainly made in China.
The problem with shops shipping to Taiwan like BikeInn is - they upcharge Taiwanese customers. So all products are +5% more expensive - likely because they need to pay more for Taiwanese credit cards. But yeah still way better than buying in Taiwan. Just get everything you need for a year together and order in Europe at one of the big retailers. Or sometimes amazon US. Other shops often only offer crazy expensive DHL express shipment (worth it if you order a lot - say stuff for 60.000ntd or more).
For wheels I rather directly order in China. Taiwan has low import/vat so wheels/rims come cheap. So I simply order at Nextie. They really upped their game in the last year and have very good quality and the most modern standards/evolutions. Why should you go for aluminum rims if you get really good carbon ones in China for around 250 USD? Would not pay for premium aluminum rims.
Xpedo - wasn’t I talking about high quality? Yeah I know some of them are decent.
Specialized is mainly made in Taiwan too. Well and pricing here seems to be as bad as others. The thing seems to be that in Taiwan there are no big end of season discounts. It’s less with the supply crunch in Europe - but you still get a lot of 2-3 year old stuff for 1/2 price or less in Europe - not happening in Taiwan.
I’ve been working in the cycling industry in Taiwan for around 7 years. I don’t really have an answer but here are some things that I have observed and that I can recall now.
I have to say that I do not think everything is more expensive here than in Europe. You can buy some complete bikes here cheaper than there. And regarding components it depends. High-end stuff is usually more expensive here.
Talking about complete bikes, the reason a lot of people here seem to prefer foreign brands instead of Giant, Merida and other local brands is because they do not want to ride the same brand that their grandma-pa use to go to the market. This is more evident with the high-end bikes. There are still a lot of mid-range Giants and Meridas.
Cycling is the new golf. A lot of people are mostly interested in being seen on an expensive bike, or I should say to have an expensive bike near them while drinking their coffee. Asians are suckers for luxury stuff. I move here in the same social circles as in Europe. I never met a woman there with Prada, LV bags, while here everyone seems to have at least one. Cycling is the same. They seem to be more willing to pay a premium for luxury items and it looks like everyone wears Rapha apparel here. I am not saying that Europe does not have this problem, but the proportion of people really interested in the sport there is higher than here.
We cannot compare huge European online retailers with tiny Taiwanese Shopee retailers. And I mean HUGE. I am sure some of them are bigger than the whole Taiwanese market.
Anyway, shops give you cheaper prices in person than online. It is a good practice to use Shopee/Ruten to find a shop near you that has a good price for the product you are interested in. Then go there and purchase it in person. Most of the time, they will give you a discount price.
My experience is that Taiwanese do not like to do clearing sales. They don’t mind having old stock collecting dust in the warehouse because they want to sell it for the same price as when it was not an old specification that no one wants now. Actually, that is not even true, because if they increase prices of products, they also increase the price for this really old stuff. You would be really surprised to see the amount of old components we have in the warehouse and the price they are still asking for them. In their mind, selling at a discount diminishes the name of the brand and their customers (distributors and dealers) can get angry.
I don’t know if shops do the same, but I would say they do because it is not common to find heavily discounted items in them.
Taiwanese brands want to charge a higher price because their products are Made in Taiwan, they are not bad and cheap Made in China components. Even if sometimes they are literally selling Chinese made components. They are too proud of themselves in this regard.
Absolutely recommend them. I’ve built dozens of sets with Kinlin. Very good value for the money. Can be a little bit hard to find all the options on shoppee/ruten, so you may have to look around a bit. Should always be under $1000nt per rim.
yeah, who with a clear mind would buy a 8 year old Lapierre Froggy in top spec at list price - just seen this one in a shop in Taichung.
And yes I guess at least 5-6 of the big online shops in Europe turnover more than the whole Taiwanese market (except low-end - so stuff found on bikes above 30.000ntd list price). If you see their warehouses they are massive - with like 30-40 truck docks for a bike part shop only.
Heard superstar components buys brake pads per type by container. So when they get a new delivery it’s like 20 containers of brake pads. They likely sell more brake pads per year than Giant specs on their worldwide sold bikes per year (I am not sure if Giant is building up the bikes in Europe or Taiwan - I think in Europe to avoid taxes and tolls as bike parts are way cheaper to import than full bikes - that’s also why you can buy full bikes here at decent prices, but not parts. Full bikes need to be assembled in Europe in order to get into lower toll tariffs.
Oh I didn’t know that if you go to the shop locally you can get the price cheaper than on Shopee. Will try it the next time I need something.
This has not been my experience. In fact it has been opposite. I don’t know about bike stuff but for almost everything else the prices I see in physical stores are at least 30% higher than online prices. When I ask they said it’s because online sellers don’t need to rent a physical store which costs more, but I see lots of old as shit stuff that they’re still asking for insane prices for, like a BROKEN (yes as in does not work) TIG welder for 20,000NT. As in they think I’m such an idiot that I’ll pay brand new price for a broken tool when I can get it from China for 1/2 the price, and they work and have warranty (unlike OEM stuff, Chinese are actually really proud of Chinese branded products and will stand behind them).
This is one reason why I order so much stuff from Taobao… even if I have to wait 2+ weeks for it. The prices Taiwanese sellers ask for some products make no sense, especially when same product can be bought from China at 1/2 the price after shipping and tariff.
Edit: Actually for bike parts (low end stuff only), shops want to charge 300 for an inner tube, 600 for a tire. I can get both online for about 300 total. My experience is shops charge way more than online stores.
yep I have not found this either yet - and some of the shops on Shopee don’t seem to have a shop but just a warehouse. But I will surely try.
I know for road tires most people in Taichung seem to get the Continental Ultra Sport III on their training wheels. it’s 460 plus delivery on Shopee, and 500 in a local shop. That’s like a fair price for the local shop. It’s actually one of the few things at similar price to Europe (in Europe you could always get some old stock of XY brand for 150 ntd or similar though if you just wanted something cheap). Tires in general seem to be rather the exception and priced similar.
And MSRP in Europe/USA are for the sticker only. Either you pay 20-30% less - or you can expect a free bike fitting and some parts exchanged. Well that was until 2021 when the supply chains broke. I usually bought demo bikes used 4-5 times for 50% list price in autumn.
Direct sales brands like YT or Canyon of course you pay list - and 10-20% discount if stock is left in their end of season sales, and sometimes 10-20% less on preorder in their autumn - next year sales (pay fully now, get it 6-8 months later at YT. Canyon didn’t doo such massive pre order discounts).
Some of the sellers in Shopee/Ruten are physical stores. Just check their address in Shopee with Google Maps. Yes, probably they do not always offer a reduced price if you go there, but my experience is that if you buy a few things and talk to them in Chinese, they give you discounts. For example, I recently purchased a few things in these two shops and they both gave me a nice discount from their Shopee prices:
