What's with Shimano? Do they have a hate on for Canada?
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What's with Shimano? Do they have a hate on for Canada?
Just wondering what's going on with them... getting parts here is near impossible now. It's not that they dont exist (due to shortages from covid), I've found the parts abroad, they just wont let distributors send them here. I can, and have been, getting them from China though I'm not sure why that's Shimano's marketing plan. It doesn't make any sense, they're making a deliberate effort to kill the LBS industry but also not letting on line retailers (other than China) get the parts here either. I'm not a business major so I can't understand how not allowing your parts to be shipped or sold helps in any way. What am I missing here?
Last edited by Ryan_M; 09-02-21 at 12:14 AM.
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It's not just Canada. They stopped allowing International sales of their products to the US, as well. The idea seems to be to preventing European online retailers from undercutting the prices of North American retailers and LBS. China doesn't follow anyone's rules and they may not be selling actual Shimano products.
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Apparently you're unclear on the worldwide supply chain issues across most industries.
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Just wondering what's going on with them... getting parts here is near impossible now. It's not that they dont exist (due to shortages from covid), I've found the parts abroad, they just wont let distributors send them here. I can, and have been, getting them from China though I'm not sure why that's Shimano's marketing plan. It doesn't make any sense, they're making a deliberate effort to kill the LBS industry but also not letting on line retailers (other than China) get the parts here either. I'm not a business major so I can't understand how not allowing your parts to be shipped or sold helps in any way. What am I missing here?
As it is, they situated themselves in Peterborough in the Kawartha lakes region, because, well, fishing.
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Shipping a complete mess. Containers stuck in wrong places, containers waiting to be unloaded in backed up ports,
Every business is making decisions based on prioritizing what is the most profitable.
Meanwhile all their global customers were used to not having to have substantial inventory, which is no longer a viable strategy. So what is available is being snatched up in its entirety by the businesses closest to where the factories are.
Patience.
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If it's only Shimano that you are having trouble getting stuff from, then you have more than we do down here.
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Welcome to Shimano's brave new world of Geoblocking. I went from buying maybe 500+ bucks of Shimano products a year to effectively zero, because the local range is limited, not in stock and expensive.
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EU laws are different from US and the parts manufacturers can basically require everything go through third party distributors and fix prices which they can't do in the EU which is part of why Europe's prices are better than ours, so Shimano and Sram have banned the sale of their products to the US and by extension, Canada from the EU. Canada's laws must be similar enough to ours to allow this to happen. I've often wondered if this wouldn't be a class action against the manufacturers for not allowing these sales but I'm sure the whole system is skewed in their favor. This is the reason I've switched my bikes to Campy for the nice stuff, its just cheaper to buy and import than buy shimano/sram locally. For the entry level stuff I use microshift or buy from China, microshift has proven every bit as good and often better than the equivalent shimano/sram.
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Parts are just not being produced as it once was. Unless it's truly broke, just clean up the old stuff & reuse it.
the whole change they did has put a real bad taste in everyone's mouth. I find myself looking at bicycles & decreasing its value if it's equipped with there shhhtuff. it's probably not going to impact profits much to care, & I am sure my view is just a speck of dust to them. 5+ years out from now will paint a better picture with regard to the changes.
the whole change they did has put a real bad taste in everyone's mouth. I find myself looking at bicycles & decreasing its value if it's equipped with there shhhtuff. it's probably not going to impact profits much to care, & I am sure my view is just a speck of dust to them. 5+ years out from now will paint a better picture with regard to the changes.
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As noted above, the world wide supply chain is broken, but even in normal times, cycling is not the primary focus for Shimano in Canada. If it was, their Canadian headquarters would be in Quebec with the rest of the major industry players.
As it is, they situated themselves in Peterborough in the Kawartha lakes region, because, well, fishing.
As it is, they situated themselves in Peterborough in the Kawartha lakes region, because, well, fishing.
...I am reminded of the old joke about a woman needing a man, like a fish needs a bicycle.
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...FWIW, the replacement cassette cog sets sold by alternative manufacturers, like Sunlite, work well and seem to be still around, mostly. I started using them when the Shimano ranges in 7 and 8 cassette that I use simply disappeared, long before the Covid supply chain disruption. I'm probably not a good sample customer, though, because once a project bike gets finished by me, there are so many different ones to ride, stuff rarely wears out on one of them.
And I'm stuck back in the 70's, 80's, and 90's as far as what I ride. So Shimano hasn't been interested in my needs for a long time now.
...FWIW, the replacement cassette cog sets sold by alternative manufacturers, like Sunlite, work well and seem to be still around, mostly. I started using them when the Shimano ranges in 7 and 8 cassette that I use simply disappeared, long before the Covid supply chain disruption. I'm probably not a good sample customer, though, because once a project bike gets finished by me, there are so many different ones to ride, stuff rarely wears out on one of them.
And I'm stuck back in the 70's, 80's, and 90's as far as what I ride. So Shimano hasn't been interested in my needs for a long time now.
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It's not just Canada. They stopped allowing International sales of their products to the US, as well. The idea seems to be to preventing European online retailers from undercutting the prices of North American retailers and LBS. China doesn't follow anyone's rules and they may not be selling actual Shimano products.
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In 1981 I purchased the new Shimano group for A bicycle I put together were I was stationed in Germany. I believe it was an 11 peace set. I shipped stateside several months later and that same group was more expensive than my complete bike I had put together in Germany. Pandemic is not the cause of a huge price difference. In the late 70s some genius convinced our politicians to put a taxation on imported bicycles and parts. I believe it was called the double eighty. The reason for this was to protect the likes of Huffy and Schwinn. My goal when I had my custom touring bike made was to not have anything on it made in Asia. I believe the only part still made in Asia is the crank and I will be replacing it with a 160mm crank arm length one, made in the USA in the near future.
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[QUOTE=Ryan_M;22219784]I'm not denying this at all, I said in the OP that I'm not a business major so I don't see how it's good practice to withhold your parts being sold/shipped to a particular country (and it appears multiple countries). Since you know, care to share?/QUOTE]
You can't ship what you don't have. Shimano is much more concerned with getting product to OEM manufacturers to keep up with new bike production than getting a dozen chains to your LBS.
Container ships are stacked up waiting to unload , then the containers are waiting for trucks to carry them to distribution centers, and again trucks to carry product to final destinations.
Not a business major, I'm in underground construction, I've had 75 fire hydrants on order since May. I might see them by the end of this month. Ordered valves 2 weeks ago, quoted 8-12 weeks instead of the usual 4, anticipated ship date is 10/29. Domestic fitting production is being eaten up by projects that would normally use imports because they are on those container ships, making the supply I can get smaller. All my manufacturers are running full bore, or so they tell me. Just real life experience trying to get the items we need to get pipe in the ground in a 9 month construction season.
https://www.bike-eu.com/production/n...-2021-10139522
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cargo-s...ts-11629229285
You can't ship what you don't have. Shimano is much more concerned with getting product to OEM manufacturers to keep up with new bike production than getting a dozen chains to your LBS.
Container ships are stacked up waiting to unload , then the containers are waiting for trucks to carry them to distribution centers, and again trucks to carry product to final destinations.
Not a business major, I'm in underground construction, I've had 75 fire hydrants on order since May. I might see them by the end of this month. Ordered valves 2 weeks ago, quoted 8-12 weeks instead of the usual 4, anticipated ship date is 10/29. Domestic fitting production is being eaten up by projects that would normally use imports because they are on those container ships, making the supply I can get smaller. All my manufacturers are running full bore, or so they tell me. Just real life experience trying to get the items we need to get pipe in the ground in a 9 month construction season.
https://www.bike-eu.com/production/n...-2021-10139522
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cargo-s...ts-11629229285