Ive spent thousands at Chain Reaction over the years. Realized I was running low on electrolytes and decided to place an order in advance of need.
Had my vpn on and had it to London so I started shopping in GBP.
Found the High 5 Zero 8 packs at 56-57% off as normal and added to the cart at 26.99 gbp or $45.93 CAD.
Realized mistake and switched to Canadian funds and checked again and they are now $94.99 with 0 discount… WTF?
Checked American funds and they are $61.84 USD at 20% off or $83.61 CAD.
Lmfao. Cant believe it. Have to package it and ship it the exact same way no matter where its going. They ship it royal mail unless I choose DHL. Its not costing them anything extra to package it.
To order to Canada the price is over double. SO glad both my grandfather’s went overseas to fight in the war.
Shipping is on top of the doubling of the price of course.
Duty and taxes I’d imagine. I’ve given up on Wiggle. Rarely a deal to Canada.
Canada delivery
All orders are delivered duty paid. Prices will include all taxes and customs duties. You will not be required to pay import tax or duty when your order arrives at customs.
Edit: I put a few things in my cart to see but Manitoba isn’t even an option when you need to choose a province. lol
So using the GBP price for 2 packs of electrolytes works out to 91.86 CDN. The duties and taxes on that would be $32.05 if they classified it as vitamins. I have never paid duty on Electrolytes.
Anyways the total would be $123.91. CAD
The actual price is $189.98 and I cant actually order it. SO… added more to get free delivery… Address entered. Cannot order lol. Cant pay for it.
Could be an error in the system… But still the optics are crap.
Same as something like SRAM and Shimano, sometimes they’ll pop up on the Google’s at CRC, PBK, or some American website with incredible pricing, but they aren’t allowed to sell the product into whatever market.
LOL. Dont think so. Been dealing with Chain for about 5 years.
Not a distribution issue as its not sold anywhere in Canada. Not the same as sram or shimano as The American cycling industry put pressure on those companies to stop sales to North America.
Canadian trade rules have nothing to do with a foreign retailer not offering same prices they do to other markets. Sucks, but it is their right to do. Just as its my right to not shop there and to inform others.
Americans are getting screwed as well. Just not as much as Canadians on that item.
They were notorious for the € v stg£ price differences for years here in Ireland (stuff being more expensive in euro). Actually probably more so before the merger/ takeover (although a lot of their irish market has switched to german sites post brexit).
I guess not, but why do you even care. Google the product and buy it for the cheapest price from whatever retailer offers it. That’s what I do. I’d never consider paying any additional amount beyond the lowest total price just to support online retailer A v.s. online retailer B. Would you?
Because normally high 5 zero is 1/2 the price of nuun for over 2 times the amount of servings.
Received an email from them explaining that it is because of tax and vat in the destination country. Well In Canada tax is not due until it is assessed for duty at customs. When duty is applied then taxes are applied to it at that point. SO then Chain reaction is just charging more because they can and are using VAT as the reason. I have sent a follow up email.
Nuun is 91.99 for 80 servings
High 5 on sale is $47.99 for 160 servings.
Note… Just checked today to get the pricing example above and now its a 49% discount on a flavour that tastes like ass. The rest are still the same price. Guess my email to them worked and they fixed one item at 49% off .
When UK was part of EU, the exporting benefitted from whatever Canada-EU agreements are in place. Now the UK is on its own, maybe export duties and taxes are higher?
Anyway, as someone else above pointed out, the days of CRC/Wiggle being good value are long gone. Bike24, bikediscount, alltricks etc are the value retailers now on this side of Atlantic.
Cool. Thanks. I will check these stores out. I have been quite loyal to Chain for many years although i usually only buy things from them i cant buy local.
My point is why pay for tablets in the first place. This is what you can use for riding. I mix a little of this with maltodextrin and Gatorade powder for taste as on-bike fuel.
If you want the small amounts of the other vitamins, you can take an inexpensive multi-vitamin or buy other powers or gel caps for way less than fizzy tablets.
