The Great Markdown

A strikethrough is the cheapest special effect in retail. It costs nothing to type, it photographs well, and it turns an ordinary price into a story about the price you almost paid. So before this magazine reports a single discount, it applies one filter: a markdown is real only when the retailer’s own storefront carries both numbers — an asking price and a higher compare-at price — on a live, in-stock offer. Not a coupon rumour, not an “MSRP” invented for the occasion of the sale, not last year’s price remembered fondly. The store’s own till, contradicting itself in public.

By that definition, this is a heavily marked-down market.

The board this week

The index is currently reading 714 live offers across the two markets — 546 shown to Canadian buyers, 168 to American ones. Of those 714, some 314 carry a real markdown. That is 44% of the entire board: nearly every second listing is wearing a struck price.

The median markdown is 20% on the nose — 19.4% in Canada, 22.5% in the US. Half of all markdowns (51.6%, or 162 offers) cut at least a fifth off the sticker, and 90 offers are marked down 30% or more. In dollars, the median cut is $500 CAD in Canada and $418 USD in the US — against a median asking price on the full board of $2,099 CAD and $1,424 USD respectively. The typical discount, in other words, is not a rounding error. It is roughly a quarter of the typical machine.

By category, the depth is strikingly uniform — most of the shelf marks down in the same 20-something band:

Category	Markdowns	Median discount	Median cut
Commuter	149	21.1%	$500
E-dirt	35	14%	$500
Folding	24	21.6%	$300
Fat tire	24	23.1%	$400
E-trike	22	14.9%	$401
E-scooter	18	22%	$350
Mountain	16	22.8%	$480
Cargo	15	23.4%	$500
Road	9	15.8%	$500
Moped-style	2	19.6%	$375

All 314 markdowns are represented above. Cuts are in each offer’s own currency; a category row mixes markets only in depth, never in dollars.

The deepest cuts

The single deepest dollar cut in Canada is at Amego in Toronto: the Stromer ST5 Graphite with Wren suspension fork, struck from $14,559 CAD to $7,499 CAD — $7,060 CAD off a Swiss commuter flagship, a 48.5% cut. The deepest US dollar cut is a family machine: Addmotor’s E-325 cargo trike at Redtail eBikes, from $4,999 USD to $3,699 USD, $1,300 USD off.

By percentage the winners tell a different story, and it is worth reading closely. The deepest percentage cut shown to Canadian buyers is an open-box Ariel Rider D-Class listed at $400 USD against a $3,099 USD compare-at — 87.1% off, and both a cross-border price and a not-new machine. The deepest US percentage cut is the RidStar DC26 folding fat bike, $1,599 USD struck to $649 USD (59.4%), new and in stock. The pattern generalizes: the biggest percentages on the board tend to belong to open-box units, refurbished stock and cross-border direct sellers, while the biggest dollar figures belong to premium machines quietly clearing out.

The movers

The deepest live cuts in each market, one row per machine and store. Canada first, in Canadian dollars:

Machine	Store	Was (CAD)	Now (CAD)	Cut
Bulls Grinder Evo	Amego	$6,999	$2,799	60%
Argon 18 Subito Gravel	Amego	$7,300	$3,649	50%
Argon 18 Subito Road	Amego	$6,499	$3,249	50%
ENVO Flex Electric Snowbike	ENVO	$3,879	$1,940	50%
Bulls Urban Evo 10	Amego	$5,439	$2,799	48.5%
Stromer ST5 Graphite w/ Wren	Amego	$14,559	$7,499	48.5%
Cannondale Moterra Neo 3	Amego	$9,205	$4,999	45.7%
Yeason Commuter	Zeus Ebikes	$1,999	$1,199	40%

A necessary aside for Canadian readers: 201 of the 546 offers shown to Canada — including 107 of its 215 markdowns — are actually priced in US dollars, from direct sellers shipping north. Those rows are excluded from the CAD table above and carry their own currency wherever they appear on this site. A $999 USD strikethrough is not a $999 CAD price, and duty does not read marketing copy.

The US board, in US dollars:

Machine	Store	Was (USD)	Now (USD)	Cut
RidStar DC26	RidStar (direct)	$1,599	$649	59.4%
RidStar DC26	Redtail eBikes	$1,599	$649	59.4%
RidStar E26 Pro	RidStar (direct)	$1,700	$719	57.7%
RidStar FM001 2-Seater	RidStar (direct)	$1,099	$569	48.2%
RidStar FM001 2-Seater	Redtail eBikes	$1,000	$569	43.1%
RidStar FM001	Redtail eBikes	$1,000	$569	43.1%
Addmotor Garootan M-81 Cargo	Addmotor (direct)	$2,099	$1,199	42.9%
Addmotor Garootan M-81 Cargo	Redtail eBikes	$2,099	$1,199	42.9%

When the same machine appears twice, that is the finding: RidStar’s cuts are mirrored identically at a reseller, which usually marks a manufacturer-led clearance rather than one store’s inventory problem.

Who runs the markdown desk

Twenty-two stores currently post at least one markdown. The three busiest — Zeus Ebikes with 46, Redtail eBikes with 44, Eahora with 30 — account for 38.2% of all 314. Concentration matters because a markdown-heavy storefront is a pricing strategy, not a windfall: at a store where half the catalog is permanently struck through, the compare-at is closer to decoration than history.

Disclosure, again in the body text where it belongs: Zeus Ebikes and Redtail eBikes, the two busiest markdown desks on this board, are owned by this magazine’s publisher. They receive no favour here — their strikethroughs pass the same single filter as everyone else’s and are counted by the same script, and this paragraph exists precisely so you can weigh that yourself.

How to read a deal

Four rules fall straight out of this week’s data. Judge the now-price against the market, not against the was-price. The median commuter on this board asks $2,099 CAD; a “$1,000 off” machine still above that has told you about its history, not its value. Read the condition line before the percentage. The board’s flashiest cuts are open-box and refurbished units — sometimes genuinely great buys, never the same product as the sealed box. Convert the currency before the excitement. More than a third of what Canadian buyers see is USD-priced. And treat permanent sales as a price, not an event. A compare-at that never sells at compare-at is just typography.

The full board recomputes nightly on the market page, and every machine’s offer history lives on its sheet in the database. The strikethroughs will refresh by morning. The filter stays.