ballies
Race Dog
I?m new to the forum, so hello and thanks for having such a great site. I was the proud owner of a KTM 640 until a year ago. Unfortunately it was a 2000 model and I had to let her go. I still have contact with the new owner and he allows me to visit her every now and then. My new (first) wife suggested that I get a new bike so I decided I would shop around and wait the year out. I decided on a second hand KTM 950 Adventure for various reasons and happily bought it at the beginning of January 2007.
So what did I do the whole year without a bike? Well, I decided to shop for apparel.
I once considered buying jackets, pants and protection gear in our local shops, but after some investigation I found the prices to be very excessive, especially the branded items. First and foremost I realize that owning and running a bike (apparel) shop takes a lot of money, love and luck. But that is no reason to charge a customer 200-300% markup. I will of cause not mention which shop(s) I?m referring to because of the law suite thing. That said let me continue.
I bought everything on the internet. (I will list all the sites at the end of this publication)
My first journey took me to one very good site in the USA (mid-west) KTM-PARTS.COM. That was after visiting and contacting 30 other sites in America. I found their prices to be very reasonable and the shipping not that expensive. They stock various brands. I bought an enduro jacket, helmet (m2m),mx pants, adventure pants, knee guards, kidney belt and camel pack with a saving of 60% on the prices in SA. I bought these items in 3 transactions and it took an average of 10days for delivery. The import tax on these ?expensive? items was never above R100. In fact it was R85.82, R81.06 and R25.00. I priced my helmet at the local shop and it cost R3500 and the price I paid was R1500. That just made me the moer in, but also happy that I made the effort to shop for the best prices.
My second journey took me to the European sites. I surfed sites in the UK, Germany, Holland, Switzerland and ended in Austria. I wanted to buy an adventure jacket and as you know it is on average an expensive item. Most of the sites charged 50 euro or more for shipping and I thought that to be too high. Then I found a brilliant site in Austria ? Buamschlager.at. These dudes know how to do business. My adventure jacket cost 189 euros, but I was afraid that my shipping cost would wreck the savings I made. At the end of the day old Baumi at Baumschlager took the tax money I did not have to pay and used it for the shipping cost. So, the price I saw was the price I paid. A saving of R1200 I made on this deal.
There are some snags to remember when buying items on the internet. The first thing to consider is the security of your credit transaction. If the pay site isn?t marked as an https site do not continue with the transaction. The second thing to remember is the weight of the items. If the weight is too high you might be paying more for your shipping than the item itself. I would then rather go for local goods especially when you are buying frames etc. The third thing to remember is that the more items you can purchase, the lower the average shipping cost and tax on the items will be. The fourth and most important thing to remember is not to attempt to make a business out of it. Customs will pick you up in no time and then you will pay excessive tax on your 10 jackets you just imported. Leave that part to honest shop owners.
I hope this will help you if you are in need of apparel. Unfortunately my search was limited to mostly KTM items ,but as I said earlier, most of these sites sell other brands as well. Here are the lists of my sites I use.
? https://www.ktm-parts.com/ USA
? https://www.baumschlager.at/indexd.html Austria
? https://www.ktm-sommer.de/ Germany. Speak to Oliver Nix.
? https://www.2radlenz.at/ Austria
? https://babelfish.altavista.com/tr Use this to translate any German you do not understand
Happy shopping!!
So what did I do the whole year without a bike? Well, I decided to shop for apparel.
I once considered buying jackets, pants and protection gear in our local shops, but after some investigation I found the prices to be very excessive, especially the branded items. First and foremost I realize that owning and running a bike (apparel) shop takes a lot of money, love and luck. But that is no reason to charge a customer 200-300% markup. I will of cause not mention which shop(s) I?m referring to because of the law suite thing. That said let me continue.
I bought everything on the internet. (I will list all the sites at the end of this publication)
My first journey took me to one very good site in the USA (mid-west) KTM-PARTS.COM. That was after visiting and contacting 30 other sites in America. I found their prices to be very reasonable and the shipping not that expensive. They stock various brands. I bought an enduro jacket, helmet (m2m),mx pants, adventure pants, knee guards, kidney belt and camel pack with a saving of 60% on the prices in SA. I bought these items in 3 transactions and it took an average of 10days for delivery. The import tax on these ?expensive? items was never above R100. In fact it was R85.82, R81.06 and R25.00. I priced my helmet at the local shop and it cost R3500 and the price I paid was R1500. That just made me the moer in, but also happy that I made the effort to shop for the best prices.
My second journey took me to the European sites. I surfed sites in the UK, Germany, Holland, Switzerland and ended in Austria. I wanted to buy an adventure jacket and as you know it is on average an expensive item. Most of the sites charged 50 euro or more for shipping and I thought that to be too high. Then I found a brilliant site in Austria ? Buamschlager.at. These dudes know how to do business. My adventure jacket cost 189 euros, but I was afraid that my shipping cost would wreck the savings I made. At the end of the day old Baumi at Baumschlager took the tax money I did not have to pay and used it for the shipping cost. So, the price I saw was the price I paid. A saving of R1200 I made on this deal.
There are some snags to remember when buying items on the internet. The first thing to consider is the security of your credit transaction. If the pay site isn?t marked as an https site do not continue with the transaction. The second thing to remember is the weight of the items. If the weight is too high you might be paying more for your shipping than the item itself. I would then rather go for local goods especially when you are buying frames etc. The third thing to remember is that the more items you can purchase, the lower the average shipping cost and tax on the items will be. The fourth and most important thing to remember is not to attempt to make a business out of it. Customs will pick you up in no time and then you will pay excessive tax on your 10 jackets you just imported. Leave that part to honest shop owners.
I hope this will help you if you are in need of apparel. Unfortunately my search was limited to mostly KTM items ,but as I said earlier, most of these sites sell other brands as well. Here are the lists of my sites I use.
? https://www.ktm-parts.com/ USA
? https://www.baumschlager.at/indexd.html Austria
? https://www.ktm-sommer.de/ Germany. Speak to Oliver Nix.
? https://www.2radlenz.at/ Austria
? https://babelfish.altavista.com/tr Use this to translate any German you do not understand
Happy shopping!!
