Timeline for Why is buying a bike as a whole cheaper than buying separate parts and building it?

6 events

when toggle format	what		by	license	comment
May 11 at 22:03	comment	added	zenbike		@Aron Sure you can. At least with the crops of mid and post-Covid bikes. All kinds of Groupset Shaped Objects and Component Shaped Objects out there these days.
May 10, 2016 at 6:51	comment	added	Aron		Lets not forget BSOs are much cheaper than Bikes. But you can't buy Groupset Shaped Objects.
May 9, 2016 at 15:56	comment	added	wedstrom		Further add the fact that each individual part is not likely to sell quickly. Many of the parts will sit on the shelf for quite some time. This is a huge cost in business. Add to the mix that markup is different, the bike might only have a 15-25% margin but any part under forty dollars is likely to be closer to 100%, with intermediate items at similarly intermediate margins. That's the cost of doing business.
May 9, 2016 at 15:03	comment	added	Chris H		Reasons for some of the economies of scale: handling a package takes about the same amount of time whether it has 1 part or 50 identical parts in it (affecting internal and delviery costs); retail packaging is more expensive; it costs money (in the form of staff time) to sell you an item, whether that's a bike or a sprocket.
May 9, 2016 at 12:59	history	edited	zenbike	CC BY-SA 3.0	added 4 characters in body
May 9, 2016 at 12:18	history	answered	zenbike	CC BY-SA 3.0