Giant (the make!) frame sizes

"Ben" wrote in message
...
| On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 14:50:12 +0100, "Jaz" wrote:
|
| One thing I'm curious about. Giant does not allow its dealers to sell
| online. It is specifically prohibited in the dealer agreement. This
| leads
| me to suspect you are about to buy an older model and/or used bike.
Once
| you have it in hand, it is well worth the trip to the LBS to get it
| inspected, assembled, etc.
|
| I'm in the UK so I suspect Giant's rules for online sales are different
over
| here? There are quite a lot of UK dealers who sell online so I'd suspect
| it's OK.
|
| In the UK it's probably down to the competition laws, stuff like
| you're not allowed to price-fix etc.
|
| Any idea why Giant prohibit this in the states?
|
| Lawsuits maybe? Giant might be afraid of Joe Bloggs not setting up
| his mail-order bike properly, having an accident and then suing them.
| By making the LBS sell them 'in person' as it were, they ensure
| they're properly set up.

Giant appears to be extremely concious of liability. Their bikes come
festooned with a multitude of "Warning" stickers on the frame, the stem, the
seatpost, the brake levers and the brakes themselves. If I was a consumer,
I'd be scared to death with so many warnings all over.

However, it has far more to do with Giant keeping control over their prices
in the US. Yes, it is illegal to price fix, but the remedy is to take a
company to court and almost all of their customers are independent bike
dealers who can't afford to "Rock the boat" that way. Giant gives their
dealers a range of prices and you are supposed to sell them in that range
(within the current model year) or they can refuse to sell to you. They
claim this is to protect competing dealers from cutthroating each other, but
it is in reality price fixing. Giant isn't the only company to do it, it's
done by every bike company I've dealt with.


---
__o
_`\(,_ Cycling is life,
(_)/ (_) all the rest, just details.
Nelson Binch =^o.o^=
http://intergalax.com

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