On page 3 of this thread, Flo7 said Mira bike told him it would be 469usd for a 10 piece order. That's a fantastic price. Would love to get in on that.
But how does the order work? Anyone ever do a group order here? I'm guessing only one of us actually places the order of course. The rest of us send that guy the money? How do we determine who can be trusted to not rip us off?
And how does the shipping work? Does he receive all the frames then ship them all out to everyone in on the order? What will happen if warranty issues come up?
And does anyone know if there are tarriffs or duty on frames sent to the US?
I've never done a group purchase myself, but I have been part of group purchases for performance auto parts in the past. But that was from US based companies, not china.
Yes, its usually one guy that places the order, that guy receives them all, and then distributes to the others. At least thats the way it worked in the past. We typically used paypal, and group purchases were typically run by trusted members of the online community, many of which had done previous group purchases. As far as I know, any order above $800 US is subject to customs. I have no idea what the current customs rate might be, but probably anywhere form 10% to 25% of the total order. You'd also have to factor in state side shipping from the one delivery point to all the other purchasers. At this point, you've likely already erased the $200 savings.
Perhaps instead, someone could negotiate a lower price with the manufacturer promising 10+ orders, but requiring each purchaser to pay the manufacturer directly, and receive the frame individually. This puts much of the onus back on the manufacturer since they have to handle billing and shipping for each customer again, so I would not expect them to offer anything close tot he same $200 off, but they might be willing to meet somewhere in the middle.
But this is all just speculation. I've never dealt with a manufacturer directly before regarding multiple purchases, nor do I particularly wish to do so now.
