this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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Why does Urbane Cyclist (Toronto bike shop) do this? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Even though I don't live in the city, I enjoy supporting Toronto bike shops because they carry brands that my local shops don't.

I've purchased several items from Urbane, and just saw that they are having a sale for their 28th anniversary. Cool!

One of the items I was looking at was the Apidura packable musette bag.

Urbane lists it at $81, but on sale for $60. This didn't seem right, because I've seen it for around that price at other shops, so I looked again:

  • La Bicicletta Toronto: $56 (regular price).
  • Dismount Bike Shop (Toronto): $66 (regular price).
  • Cyclesmith (Halifax and Dartmouth): $56 (regular price).
  • The Cyclepath (Toronto): $66 (regular price).

Look, I can appreciate that "sales" can drive sales, but I know they've done this with other items, and have done it in the past during other sale events.

Is there any reasonable explanation why they would want to damage trust like this? I want to support them, but I don't want to be ripped off in the process.

EDIT: formatting

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They're a worker co-op, so I suspect they pay themselves better wages. That could require higher margins to support. I support them whenever I can because I believe the extra margins aren't going towards a single person's pocket while the rest get minimum wage.

Now this is all derived from them being a worker co-op. I don't have concrete details on what the wages are.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They’re a worker co-op, so I suspect they pay themselves better wages

This came to mind, but they seem to artificially inflate prices for these sales, because their regular prices are usually fine.

For example, their regular price on a cleverhood is actually LESS than a few other stores in Ontario.

This "sale" game really has bad optics, in my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I can totally see that.