Wheelbuilding / Wheel Building / Wheel build help

If you run an actual legit tax paying business, you should really charge more than £6.

Staff cost, rent, business rates, packing, printing, web hosting, PayPal/Card fees, business insurance then postage.

I personally take a hit on all UK Champagne sales I post, and use personal time for London based deliveries. #CSB #pleasebuychampagne

Wouldn't one factor those costs into the base price of the item rather than a surcharge on the postage cost? Also I always assumed that (large) businesses have contracts for postage rather than just dropping stuff off in the Post Office and paying full price like your average shitmuncher.

No criticism of your business model, just curious

Contracts are usually for over 100 parcels per week so smaller businesses don't get access to them.

Not sure about CycleBasket pricing / business strategy but it does not look like a big business.

I also imagine they probably order in bulk from ACI in the far east so would be tied up to the poor GBP exchange rates. That's another thing to add to the list.

In short, everyone wants a good deal and it is sometimes hard to pay the actual price things cost.

But that should all come out of your margin. Postage is postage and packaging and not business costs

Fair enough. It's some sort of fallacy but it feels like £12 + £6p/p is a ripoff and £18 + free p/p is a good deal. Stupid brain.

Still part of the turnover and you get taxed on it.
I see what you mean, some people prefer seeing free postage but ultimately they pay for it.

If CycleBasket charged 40p per spoke all in, then we probably would not use them and go to Evans and pay £0.50 per spoke and use a 20% off voucher which are often available.

Regardless of CycleBasket pricing strategy, I will be place a spoke order this week.

I am covering postage costs so let me know if you need spokes (to be picked up in Stoke Newington or The City)

Postage is postage and packaging and not business costs

Still needs to be priced at a reasonable level unless you're cross subsidising mail order from walk-in trade or just including shipping in your margin as mail order only shops do. As Vince intimates, Cycle Basket must be doing that to some extent to hold their P&P charge down to £6

Subsidising what? All you’re doing is putting it in the post, otherwise it’s a normal sale.
Delivery should be delivery

Yeah but the whole act of stocking spokes and then selling them is probably a not insignificantly expensive ball ache. I always feel for the chap that has to count out the nipples. If the postage is over £3, the packaging £1 then the process of counting, sorting, labeling and then actually posting said spokes is £2 worth of effort. That doesnt even include the faff of ensuring stock levels on the myriad lengths and styles of spokes which is service in itself I think.

I like cyclebasket because the spokes are cheap, They always have all the sizes, are delivered in a timely manner and they aren't wiggle/CRC/etc. What they are not good for is buying one or two spokes (cos of the p&p) which is why Vince is taking suborders (which is very kind of him).

I have no problem with £6 postage or CycleBasket :)
But if you didn’t make the order, that guy still gets his wages. So you’re not paying £2 for his time counting them, all sales are. It’s also nonsense to say you wouldn’t include it in all prices because you’d be subsidising mail order sales. In person sales have their own costs to cover, brick and mortar rent/bills etc.
I maintain postage costs should be postage, absolutely all other business costs come out of profit. That’s just how it works. Some sales will have no margin in like spokes and nipples. You win some you lose some.

At least your delivery cost is only £6 😣

Maybe the Highlands and Islands surcharge the couriers slap on, is the reason Martin was willing to post by RM as an occasional change to his usual method

.

All you’re doing is putting it in the post, otherwise it’s a normal sale.

Compared with a shop sale, you have wrapping, carrier's charge and maybe taking it to the carrier's office, depending on which service you use. Premises, finance and labour costs should be pretty much identical if you're a shop which does mail order rather than a mail order only outfit. Do you really think you can wrap and post something for less than £6 over the cost of passing it over the counter?

Do you really think you can wrap and post something for less than £6 over the cost of passing it over the counter?

I have no problem with £6 postage

Where did you read that?

If I go into the shop and say "can I have 30 spokes of length X and 30 spokes of length Y and 60 nipples please" the guy still has to count them out right? Unless I am expected to do that myself in the shop (I'm guessing not; it would create a huge mess on the shop floor). So the only difference in terms of wages is that the guy has to chuck them in a bag, print out a label and post them rather than handing them to me.

In the shop they have to deal with cash, cleaning, whatever regulations there are about shop floors (prices displayed for every item etc.), carrier bags and whatever other packaging, as well as having a guy standing around doing nothing in case I need help whilst I'm in there, etc.

Regardless, I don't think it costs £6 extra to post something compared to selling it to me in person (ignoring the cost of postage itself).

I don't mind paying it though; they said it's signed/next day delivery which probably costs about £6 (ie. there's no surcharge for packaging) but I'm in no rush so the speedy delivery is an unnecessary expense for me.

In his email to me he said he's not found unsigned Royal Mail reliable so I'm guessing they had a bunch of parcels go missing and had to eat the losses themselves and now are being very cautious.

Right, back to wheel building -

Quick question on tape. I've got a pair of R460's I've just built up. 18mm internal width. I'm not going to run them tubless to begin with, but may look at it later down the line.

The recommended tubeless tape is 21mm wide. I beleive this accounts for the central channel of the rim.

Should I therefore use 21mm normal rim tape or can I use narrower?

Is there a recommended rim tape?

The rim's sleeve joint, on its own, won't be completely airtight under pressure (being reliant on sealant).
As wide a tape as you can get away with while still being able to get the tyres on, in order to minimise the size of the hole/crack at the joint that the sealant has to fill.
If the rim's 22mm wide (externally), 21mm sounds about right, after the central channel is accounted for.

So the only difference in terms of wages is that the guy has to chuck them in a bag, print out a label and post them rather than handing them to me.

Which is exactly what I said, and I still don't think it can be done for £6 in a small way

I don't think it costs £6 extra to post something compared to selling it to me in person (ignoring the cost of postage itself)

The £6 includes postage, and VAT on the p&p charge. Out of £6, £1 goes to HMRC immediately, £3.85 goes on a Signed for 2nd class small parcel, a Jiffy bag big enough for small bike parts is about 18p as long as you buy by the thousand, label about 3p plus 1p for printer consumables. That leaves about 94p to pay your mail boy to print the label, attach it to the envelope, put the stuff in it and take it to the post office. That's 5-10 minutes depending on the age and working hours of the mail boy assuming he is on minimum wage. Plenty of time if he has hundreds of packages to send every day and the Post Office collects them, not so much if it's only 10 per day and the shop isn't right next door to a Post Office branch.

I'm not going to run them tubless to begin with, but may look at it later down the line.

Just fit the tubeless tape now, it won't mind being used with a tube.

But like I said there are costs to doing business in person too; eg. dealing with cash, having a guy standing around on minimum wage to help customers and prevent shoplifting, having a neat, clean, well-lit shop floor that isn't putting you at risk of a lawsuit, etc. If they sold everything online they wouldn't have to pay any of those costs, and if you're factoring in jiffy bag costs to P&P you arguably need to factor in shop floor costs into shop floor sales. Or, just shove all those costs straight into the margin and charge less for postage.

Anyway it's all moot because like I said it's next day signed for delivery which probably costs them £6 already without handling (it's >£7 with Royal Mail according to the guy) and I don't mind paying it because it's still the cheapest option.

there are costs to doing business in person...If they sold everything online they wouldn't have to pay any of those costs

We're talking about a business model based on a shop which does mail order on the side. Maybe there's a small saving on mail order because the goods don't have to go from the storage area to the display area on the way to the customer, although for small parts the journey is more likely storage to counter so there's no difference. Clearly the economics are different if you're a warehouse operation with no shop floor, although the actual cost of p&p is still going to be £3-£4 on top of just throwing unwrapped bike parts onto the loading dock, and that money has to come from somewhere.

Any thoughts on a 24h track rim, as above? Do shout out if I should be asking elsewhere... Thanks.

Any thoughts on a 24h track rim

XR31T. Sound, more aero than you think, cheap-ish. By the time you need something faster, somebody else will pay for it.

kinlin xr31 disc is nice -> here in superstarcomponent version

Thanks @mdcc_tester

@svenhöek Thanks, do you know if Superstar’s disc version is offset? (Doesn’t say so in the desc, so hopefully not) I agree the disc version looks cleaner as no brake track, but Kinlin/BORG discs only seem to come in offset (@cycleclinic do correct me if I’m wrong!).