Ribble

[kiwifruit]

Hi, I ordered 2 bottom bracket from Ribble last week as they were the cheapest at £10.99 each and received the item today. As I open the parcel the bottom brackets wasn't in the original shimano box it should be. See picture. Do you think these are reconditioned? Or did they just took it out of the box to save cost on postage?

 

[Milkfloat]

The look like OEM parts to me - nothing to worry about, they are just not boxed for retail.

 

[kiwifruit]

The look like OEM parts to me - nothing to worry about, they are just not boxed for retail.

May I ask what's OEM?

 

[PhilDawson8270]

May I ask what's OEM?

Original Equipment Manufacturer

Those parts are sent to the people who build the bikes such as Ribble, so therefore do not require the retail packaging, as they are not intending to go on a store shelf and look pretty to general public.

 

[Milkfloat]

Original Equipment Manufacturer - in this case it means Ribble bulk buy parts to fit to the bikes they sell, but also sell them on to retail customers.

 

[PhilDawson8270]

Original Equipment Manufacturer - in this case it means Ribble bulk buy parts to fit to the bikes they sell, but also sell them on to retail customers.

Too slow

Shame I'm not that quick on a bike

 

[kiwifruit]

Thanks all, I thought I bought seconds.

 

[Nibor]

No Ribble and Merlin are known for these "Grey" imports as they used to be called.

 

[PhilDawson8270]

these "Grey" imports as they used to be called.

A grey import is when something is unofficially imported into the UK from a foreign market. These don't appear to look like that, they would still be in the retail packaging if they did. Since the literature is English, and they're not in retail packaging. I can't imagine it is cheaper to bring in from a predominantly English speaking country unofficially, than directly from a UK distributer. Then I also can't imagine seeing a distributer selling via unofficial channels as it's not something that Shimano would be happy with.

 

[Milkfloat]

I prefer to see it as less wasted packaging - I would be happy for all my parts to arrive like that. The amount of paper and cardboard produced by the groupset I bought a few weeks ago filled my recycling bin.

 

[Nibor]

A grey import is when something is unofficially imported into the UK from a foreign market. These don't appear to look like that, they would still be in the retail packaging if they did. Since the literature is English, and they're not in retail packaging. I can't imagine it is cheaper to bring in from a predominantly English speaking country unofficially, than directly from a UK distributer. Then I also can't imagine seeing a distributer selling via unofficial channels as it's not something that Shimano would be happy with.

We used to use the term grey as they were imported by the company on the understanding that they were to be sold as part of a bike but were being sold retail so not quite a true representation of what is meant by grey import but sort of. Just a term I and a group of my associates used.

 

[Smokin Joe]

No Ribble and Merlin are known for these "Grey" imports as they used to be called.

"Grey" imports are second hand items. New items shipped in unofficially are "Parallel" imports. Both were common in the motorcycling world in the nineties, indeed all the Japanese manufacturers were forced to drop their prices because parallel imports were undercutting their official dealer prices on new bikes by as much as two grand.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Not worth a thread on its own, but I just ordered some bits from Ribble. They were all showing as "in stock" on the website but three days later I got a note saying they'd only dispatched two of the three and the third was on order. That hacked me off a bit so I phoned and complained.

To their credit they emailed me, admitted their error, and offered me a refund (which I accepted).