Going Rate for Binding Mount and Check

I can say this with full understanding as a manager of a brick and mortar retailer, the market place is changing and physical retails need to rely on service more than ever to keep their customer base because brick and mortar retails (with exception of places like Walmart and perhaps Target) can not compete on price point against the online discounting specialists. This is especially true in ski country and GOOD FOR THE CONSUMER for having cheaper options. People want to have their cake and eat it too saying how great free markets and global capitalism are but then get pissed off when the "local" businesses struggle. Bullocks. You can't have one without the other.

Fact is, my local shop gets a lot of my SERVICE even if they don't get my SALES. I still drop two hundred a year at a shop for service which is about the same margin they would make if I bought soft goods or an end of season ski perhaps. They earn that service and charge fair prices. They wouldn't get any of my money or my service if they charged more than market rate for that service regardless of quality.

The jig gets used enough over the course of the Christmas holiday to pay for one let alone over the course of a year or several years. Having a jig for each major manufacturer that is serviced is a cost of doing business. As twinplanx notes, a mount is not rocket science and does not require advanced training. Liability? That is what insurance is for which would be paid for regardless of where skiers bought the binding and ski to be mounted, insurance would have to be on file either way.

Its a changing world out there, that is for sure.

twinplanx said:

30$ seems like alot for a couple of screws, it's not rocket surgery

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Don't forget the $$ to pay the employee (and the gov't on behalf of the employee), the electric company, either the building owner (rent) or the bank (mortgage), either the office equipment leasing company or the bank again for computers/phones/fax machine, etc, etc, etc.

The screws are likely the cheap part, it's everything else that's part of a businesses overhead that costs the $$

drjeff said:

Don't forget the $$ to pay the employee (and the gov't on behalf of the employee), the electric company, either the building owner (rent) or the bank (mortgage), either the office equipment leasing company or the bank again for computers/phones/fax machine, etc, etc, etc.

The screws are likely the cheap part, it's everything else that's part of a businesses overhead that costs the $$

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The screws come with the bindings.

twinplanx said:

30$ seems like alot for a couple of screws, it's not rocket surgery

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Then just do them yourself....

$35 to mount bindings as a member at REI

When you purchase from us it is no charge. If you bring you skis in from elsewhere it is $79 and that is on the low side fro our area.

Philpug said:

When you purchase from us it is no charge. If you bring you skis in from elsewhere it is $79 and that is on the low side fro our area.

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Damn, one more reason I'm glad I don't live in Pennsylvania.

Philpug said:

When you purchase from us it is no charge. If you bring you skis in from elsewhere it is $79 and that is on the low side fro our area.

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The low side?

I don't think I've personally seen over $50 anywhere in New England

Highmount, NY - $50. each for mounts on 2 pair (ski & bindings) bought online, free for skis bought online, w/ bindings purchased at shop. A thank you gift of 2 six packs.

up (or down) here in the lehigh valley pa its been $45-50 in previous years. my off season purchases included px12 demo's and neox 612's so i won't need mounting this yr. i don't mind paying that but the $20 that a few local shops charge if you buy them there is bogus and bad bidneth in these times in my opinion, i like and want to buy local but theres gotta be some value too

I happened to be on Firsttrax site last night and noticed they mount bindings for $35. My take away after reading this thread? Get your binding mounts done away from the metro areas when you are at the mountains.

deadheadskier said:

The low side?

I don't think I've personally seen over $50 anywhere in New England

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The other dealers local to me are $79-99.00

My friend spent $75 to get his skis mounted recently. Wouldn't listen to me when i told him not to.

deadheadskier said:

I don't think I've personally seen over $50 anywhere in New England

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One of the shops down Commonwealth Avenue charges $75 to mount a flat ski if you didn't buy anything from them. Too bad. They do great work though.

Personally, if I found out a ski shop was gouging on mounting skis more than $50, I would not go to that particular shop for any reason going forward. Even if it was my local shop of choice for services. If shops think they are going to punish skiers for shopping online by charging outrageous prices for mounting to try to get them to buy in shop instead, they are only going to generate ill will, IMO, and loose the services online ski buyers may want done locally and perhaps soft goods sales as well.

B & M shops need foot traffic in order to make sales. My guess is that the majority of the people looking to have bindings mounted are calling around first and going to the shop with the lowest price. If in a day the guy doing the $30 mount gets 5 people in his door and they each end up buying additional stuff and liked their overall shopping experience, seems to me they are the winners compared to the shop with the $80 mount that gets one person in and buys nothing more.

Now the $30 mount guy has 5 people who may be repeat customers if they need something in the future where the $80 shop has one who might come back or might not after his friends ridicule him for paying so much for the mount and then figures that he got taken advantage of.

$80-100 for mounting bindings? What do you have doctors coming in to do it?

o3jeff said:

$80-100 for mounting bindings? What do you have doctors coming in to do it?

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The sad thing is that any one could easily mount a binding with just a few tools and a jig. I don't have either or else I would just mount bindings myself. It sure ain't rocket science and it takes only a few minutes of time so it is not even labor intensive.

o3jeff said:

B & M shops need foot traffic in order to make sales. My guess is that the majority of the people looking to have bindings mounted are calling around first and going to the shop with the lowest price. If in a day the guy doing the $30 mount gets 5 people in his door and they each end up buying additional stuff and liked their overall shopping experience, seems to me they are the winners compared to the shop with the $80 mount that gets one person in and buys nothing more.

Now the $30 mount guy has 5 people who may be repeat customers if they need something in the future where the $80 shop has one who might come back or might not after his friends ridicule him for paying so much for the mount and then figures that he got taken advantage of.

$80-100 for mounting bindings? What do you have doctors coming in to do it?

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The guys buying off the net dont buy anything else from us anyway, so no loss on those sales. I can not remember ever being asked the price over the phone.

When we tell people the price to a customer they understand if they had bought from us it would be free. I have only ever had 1 person walk out

Got my son's bindings mounted on his twin tip skis for $35 at Zimmerman's in Nashua. Not sure if that was because we were buying something else at the time, though.

riverc0il said:

The sad thing is that any one could easily mount a binding with just a few tools and a jig. I don't have either or else I would just mount bindings myself. It sure ain't rocket science and it takes only a few minutes of time so it is not even labor intensive.

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I'd be more likely to make my own jig than pay $50+ to have someone else do it....

That's the reason I kind of like the idea of system bindings, I don't have to worry about getting bent over to have them mounted...