Interesting move here. Trek will give you blue book value on a trade in, refurbish, and resell used bikes on their website.
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This is a pretty big deal to me. The worst part of bicycles for me is selling them and dealing with all the low ballers. I love that Trek is going back to the old model of trade-ins, which has become non-existent, at least where I live. I hope other brands follow their lead.
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Too bad they are limiting it to Trek bikes…I understand why they are, but they would obviously get more traction if they opened it to other brands.
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Only Trek trade ins? Is that right? I was worried about that.
Every article I have seen has specifically said trade in in your “used Trek” bicycles or similar verbiage.
If you happen to have an old, unused Trek bike sitting in your garage, Trek wants it back.
and consumers now can trade their Trek bikes in exchange for in-store credit toward a new bike.
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Yeah, that sucks. I get it, but it sucks.
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FWIW and this is a bit dated… I bought a Santa Cruz Superlight 29er from Mikes Bikes in 2014. Then sold it late 2015 to buy a road bike. Back then (and now?) Mikes Bikes had a program where they offered Blue Book value on the bike, and it was something like $900. I sold it locally (Craigslist) within 2 weeks for $1900. Think I originally paid $2500 before tax. Seemed like a good deal versus BB value.
That money was used to buy the last 58cm 2015 Trek Domane 6.2 Disc in the USA, in Dec 2015. My LBS had it shipped from New Jersey warehouse if I’m not mistaken. Paid $4k on an MSRP of $5k. Sold that in 2021 and got $2200 from the Pros Closet, without any hassle other than asking the Trek store for a box and stuffing it into said box (about 3 hours?). That seemed like a pretty good price and I would be hard pressed to get much more selling locally. Everyone around here has been selling on Facebook Marketplace, and I refused to get an account in 2021 and my Domane got no interest on Craigslist.
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My experience selling locally is people offer me $2500 online, we show up in a safe place, they take my bike and run it through a bunch of puddles, and then say something like “would you take $1500 cash?” I am so over that. I’d rather just put it on eBay and hope. The Pros Closet sounds like the best now days though.
Regardless of the articles, I see no stated restriction on the actual Trek site:
https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/retail_bbb_bike_trade_in/
They have an embedded version of the BBB site to get a quick value estimate. I would sure hope that if it’s restricted to Trek bikes only, this page would clearly state it.
PS, I am watching the Trek training vid on it right now to double-check…
- I saw nothing about restriction to trade-ins being Trek bikes only.
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FWIW I tell people before agreeing to meet something like “I’m firm on price, look at these comps on (eBay) completed listings, don’t show up and offer me less. Do you still want to meet.” No comps, no problem, I still lay down ground rules on non-negotiable items before agreeing to meet. Sure some household stuff its listed at $50 for negotiating room, and I’ll take $40 so the buyer feels good they got a deal.
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Thanks for checking Chad. I’ll ask the local Trek owner this weekend if I can. The LBS sold and it’s Trek owned now.
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So true! Before agreeing to meet with FB Marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist buyers I now always confirm with them that they’re fine with the asking price subject to it meeting my description/photos. Used to have too many situations where people show up and say “I could only withdraw $x from my ATM, is that OK?”
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Yes, thanks for bringing that up. I also discuss payment before meeting. Mostly Venmo/Zelle these days. Yesterday I sold my first item on FB Marketplace (yes I created an account with the devil LOL), and took a crisp $100 bill. Off to sell more furniture!
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Trek probably saw how much money companies like the Pros Closet are making on used bikes, plus since they are only giving credit and they get a new sale out of it.
I would guess that they would only be paying the trade in price. It’s not super great.
For example, I looked up a 2023 Emonda SL7 (current model that is just one year old now)
New $6300
Trade in price in very good condition $3000
50% off for a one year old bike. That 3, 4, 5 year old bike is going to get you a $500 credit.
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so Blue Book values are still low-balling, like my 2015 example posted above.
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Is that really low balling or typical of a trade-in process in a modern economy?
Just like cars, trading in is set at a lower value so the dealer has room to a profit on the re-sale. As a person getting the T-I value, they are effectively paying for a service to offload the selling hassle for a quicker & easier way to get the shinny new bike home.
The experiences above demonstrate the issues well. Whether the difference in price from trade-in vs private sale are worth it to each person in each instance is totally in the eye of the bike holder. This is just an option for those would like the avoid the work required to sell at a higher price to pocket ratio. If someone doesn’t like the T-I offer, they can remove it from the new bike sale and handle it on their own. Simple.
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I’ve gotten trade-in offers on cars, and they were FAR better than blue book on bikes. See my post above.
Sure, we can N=1 this to death. I worked in my shop enough over the last decade as we’ve done this process before and after BBB was in the mix. I’ve also sold enough of my own bikes to have a fine picture of this from several angles.
Bikes are not cars. Pre-pandemic bikes used to quickly drop to 50% of retail. I’ve bought a lot of used bikes at pennies on the dollar over the years. Both my gravel and mtb were $9k builds that I picked up for around $3k in excellent condition.
It seems like we are getting back to a more normal used bike market now that supply chains have caught up and since there is this glut of used bikes from the pandemic that need to find riders.
Trek is going to ship the bike to a warehouse, refurbish it, and then ship it to a store to be sold. They need to pay wholesale to make it work. It honestly doesn’t sound like a huge money maker for them.
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What seems to get lost in the conversation here is that Trek is serious about reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. They have signed on to SBTI, which requires them to set measurable goals for themselves to meet the science-based targets behind the Paris accord.
Buyback programs which gives these bikes a second life is one way to reduce your emissions count when measured against total quantity of bikes sold. Oh, and it might be good for business too.
It’s refreshing to see companies taking concrete, measurable steps toward emissions reduction, instead of simply green-washing their image, which is what a lot of industrial companies are doing.
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