Group Buy - Is there still a market for titanium frames? or a groupbuy?

Puleeze? If you are going to post blatant advertisements in a public forum then you better get some thick skin and be ready for some criticism, especially seeing how you insiduously levied it out to Lynskey. You post under the guise of trying to get feedback, but the bottom line is this. You have a vested financial interest in this. period. So, don't tell me to step off, when you are the one posting the blatant advertisement.

FYI, Lynskey does make the Scattante frames. He probably doesn't want that to be public, because it detracts from their own public brand. But, it is widely known that the Scattante's are made entirely in the USA by Lynskey. They are double-butted. It is stated as such on the Performance website.

FACTS:

Soul - made in China (unknown manufacturer) - double butted frame - $1249 + $200 shipping = $1449
Scattante - made in USA (Lynskey manufacturer) - double butted frame - $799 = $0 shipping = $799



Edit:
one of the prices above is a group buy sale price.
one of the prices above is a seasonal advertised sale price from Performance.

I would be interested in a Soul corpus for under $800. Ideally closer to the $500 mark.

Puleeze? If you are going to post blatant advertisements in a public forum then you better get some thick skin and be ready for some criticism, especially seeing how you insiduously levied it out to Lynskey. You post under the guise of trying to get feedback, but the bottom line is this. You have a vested financial interest in this. period. So, don't tell me to step off, when you are the one posting the blatant advertisement.

FYI, Lynskey does make the Scattante frames. He probably doesn't want that to be public, because it detracts from their own public brand. But, it is widely known that the Scattante's are made entirely in the USA by Lynskey. They are double-butted. It is stated as such on the Performance website.

Do you really think being obnoxious is the right way to respond to someone trying to get feedback for an offer that might be of interest to some on here? Obviously there will be a vested financial interest but if it is at a decent price I don't see the need for the antagonism; I'm sure criticism is expected but I never get the point of being rude.
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e134/popzeus71/oscar_the_grouch_from_sesame_street.png

oh and NO BB30 for me thank you

Shed some light on BB30 for me please. I tried to wiki and didn't learn much about them.

If I buy a cheap Ti bike it will be from Mike @ BD thank you.

If I buy ANOTHER cheap Ti bike it will be from Mike @ BD thank you.

Fixed.


Seriously though, I think that frame looks sweet but right now it's priced at $2400 US. I'm not really even in the market for a Ti frame but if I was it would have to be very close to $1k. Not saying Soul should price the Destiny at $1k but I would not pay much more than that and that's probably why I don't already have one.

I appreciate his effort to listen to his potential customers.

That being said, I see the same problem as with the previous Alu group buy - the end price including shipping was just too close to something like a Caad9 frame, one of the best alu frames out there, with plenty of real world feedback from fellow cyclists.

It's a brand we haven't had enough feedback on and the prices are too close to other offerings that would get here sooner, easier to warranty and with plenty of reviews.

I definitely believe that the products are good quality, but at this point and price I'm not ready to give it a try. To get the ball rolling and people talking, personally I would sell these at the lowest possible price. The brand just isn't established enough to make this attractive IMHO.

if i go ti (which i hope to someday), i'd be looking at something with custom geometry.

but i think if you can beat BD in price for the same product, or in quality for the same price, you have a chance at getting some business.

personally i don't care whether a frame is made by Lynskey or in Asia or wherever; but you're certainly going to have to do more to convince people to pay more for your frame than what's currently available. better yet, offer yours for cheaper than what's available.

i also don't buy the whole "i can get a X frame for $$$ at ____.... but only during closeout, with limited size/color selections, and with a coupon code" argument. the way i see it, if i wanted a Ti frame now, what's the best deal i can get on a frame that fits me? and if you can offer something better, that's a compelling enough reason to buy from you rather than ____.

If I buy a cheap Ti bike it will be from Mike @ BD thank you.

"Hey Mike Why dont you try paying for your advertising like the decent and respectable vendors do instead of sending your band of troublemakers, bedwetters and halfwits into the forums to shill your marginal products?"

http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/9/959/AB2K000Z/the-three-stooges.jpg

Just a side note: I have been looking at pictures of the Lynskey R330 frame, and I am starting to think that the Scattante Ti frame uses the same tubing as the R330 everywhere except the seatstays, where Lynskey uses their Helix technology. Even the dropouts look identical, so maybe the tubes on the Scattante Ti frame did not come from overseas...

Anyways, back to the regular discussion.

"Hey Mike Why dont you try paying for your advertising like the decent and respectable vendors do instead of sending your band of troublemakers, bedwetters and halfwits into the forums to shill your marginal products?"

http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/9/959/AB2K000Z/the-three-stooges.jpg

Damn Rich, that got me hungry. Wadda ya got?

Always a good time when manufacturers actually ask us for feed back and we act like a bunch of morons.

Personally I find it refreshing when someone like Sean always stands behind their product, offers great customer service and asks us for input on future products.

Its no wonder that most companies don't take the time to do that, they don't want to deal with the influx of idiotic comments

Re: the Scattante frame, when I bought mine it was understood the tubing was provided by performance for the frames. We all just assumed the tubing was from overseas. For all we know, the tubing was purchased in the states, or like fa63 suggests, from Lynskey themselves?

fyi, performance also sells straight up Lynskey frames.

Always a good time .... with the influx of idiot..s

"Moe, Larry the cheese. Moe, Larry the cheese.".....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y6YPjcQJ4g

I agree. It's a great time for manufacturers to come onto the forums and post sales advertisements under the guise of getting feedback. Oh yes, nobody would confuse that with getting a headcount of how many will buy what at what price. Oh no. Oh and positive feedback only. Now, hands up all you buyers out there.

I think it's awesome that people who run small businesses and wish to expand include this forum as one of the places that they will visit and ask for feedback. Honestly, I think Sean's posts have been fine. Quite tactful and polite, in fact.

I'm pretty happy with my Ti frame, but I'd consider another frame if the price were right--something around USD 1,000, depending on shipping costs, quality, geometry, etc. I'd be more interested in bang-for-buck than the absolute best technology.

Seems the shipping costs are going to be the one big hurdle for any small business, especially if there are multiple shipping points. I'm not sure--does BD ship directly from overseas?

I'd prefer BB30.

marked

doesn't this stuff belong in the market place forum?

+1

I think that you raised a very important point and one that I was trying to get a feel of. IF there is an interest in a titanium group buy frame, then are you guys (the ones who are actually going to buy one), looking for the cheapest possible frame? or a high performance/ spec frame at a good price?

Because if we were to offer a straight gauge frame similar to the scattante, the price can be much cheaper but it's going to be heavy.

You may get a couple of people on here claiming they want a high performance/spec frame at a good price, but the overwhelming majority are already comparing your proposal to THE CHEAPEST offering on the market. When they buy a Scattante or MotoB, the question is always raised as to whether you can remove the stickers, and there is minimal brand loyalty. If you decide to compete with the cheapest possible offering, then you might as well save additional cost by omitting ALL graphics and just sell a generic raw frame with unfinished welds. Most will not care that they are riding a Soul bike. They just want the cheapest titanium frame humanly possible that will hold up reasonably well. There's nothing wrong with this type of buying decision, but, to regurgitate cliche, "it is what it is."

You may get a couple of people on here claiming they want a high performance/spec frame at a good price, but the overwhelming majority are already comparing your proposal to THE CHEAPEST offering on the market. When they buy a Scattante or MotoB, the question is always raised as to whether you can remove the stickers, and there is minimal brand loyalty. If you decide to compete with the cheapest possible offering, then you might as well save additional cost by omitting ALL graphics and just sell a generic raw frame with unfinished welds. Most will not care that they are riding a Soul bike. They just want the cheapest titanium frame humanly possible that will hold up reasonably well. There's nothing wrong with this type of buying decision, but, to regurgitate cliche, "it is what it is."

I am going to disagree with you a little bit here. I think most people still expect fairly high quality even with the "cheap" Scattante / Bikes Direct titanium frames. I personally would have sent the Scattante titanium frame I have right back if it looked like it was welded/finished without any attention to detail. I don't expect to look like a million dollars, but it still has to be a quality product.

One of the issues with a company like Soul Bikes is that they do not have the market presence to command a high price for their frames, at least not here in the States. So IMO the only way for them to enter the market is start low with a good quality product and work their way up. When the choice is presented to spend $1,500 on a Titanium frame, and several domestic known frame builders offer Ti frames in this price range, the choice for me will be easy as to who I buy from, even if the $1,500 frame from the foreign manufacturer is slightly better spec'd.

While on the subject, another advantage to buying from a US-based company is that if something goes wrong, it is easier to get things taken care of when you don't have to ship a frame overseas. I recently had some issues with my Scattante titanium frame, and Performance Bike had a new one on my door step in two days at no charge to me. I have a feeling the turn-around times will be significantly greater with an overseas company.

I am going to disagree with you a little bit here. I think most people still expect fairly high quality even with the "cheap" Scattante / Bikes Direct titanium frames. I personally would have sent the Scattante titanium frame I have right back if it looked like it was welded/finished without any attention to detail. I don't expect to look like a million dollars, but it still has to be a quality product.

One of the issues with a company like Soul Bikes is that they do not have the market presence to command a high price for their frames, at least not here in the States. So IMO the only way for them to enter the market is start low with a good quality product and work their way up. When the choice is presented to spend $1,500 on a Titanium frame, and several domestic known frame builders offer Ti frames in this price range, the choice for me will be easy as to who I buy from, even if the $1,500 frame from the foreign manufacturer is slightly better spec'd.

While on the subject, another advantage to buying from a US-based company is that if something goes wrong, it is easier to get things taken care of when you don't have to ship a frame overseas. I recently had some issues with my Scattante titanium frame, and Performance Bike had a new one on my door step in two days at no charge to me. I have a feeling the turn-around times will be significantly greater with an overseas company.

Good point.

Good point.

And people have had issues with their Colnago/Pinarello/Willer/Cervelo/Giant/Trek (insert manufaturer here) frames; does this make all bike companies low quality outfits?

And people have had issues with their Colnago/Pinarello/Willer/Cervelo/Giant/Trek (insert manufaturer here) frames; does this make all bike companies low quality outfits?

Can you show me a quote where anything was said about low quality?

Can you show me a quote where anything was said about low quality?

Never mind, have a good day.

Moving this to group buys where it belongs.

Hi folks,

Considering how things are developing and how the current SOUL Faith groupbuy has gone I was contemplating whether there was a market for a titanium frame groupbuy as well?

So, say either our SOUL Corpus or SOUL Destiny as a platform and going from there. Or does the market look at titanium as a more utilitarian frame material choice and just want it as cheap as possible ( straight gauge, round tubing).

Good thing about a titanium frame groupbuy is that we will be able to offer our wheels together as a package and also a complete bike build package. So discuss away.

1) Corpus or Destiny
2) Straight gauge/ double butted
3) Price range expected
4) Primary usage for the frame
5) BB30

Regards,
Sean Wai

Hi Sean, How are things developing on the soul faith group buy? It's a little quiet over there :)

This is the impression I am getting from this discussion and I feel sums up the situation very directly. I'm not sure why there were calls and also why this thread has been moved to the GROUPBUY sub-forum. There isn't a groupbuy planned at the moment actually for our titanium frames. I suppose when people see a brand owner post asking whether titanium frames are heading the way of a groupbuy and when said manufacturer is organising another groupbuy it is implied that he is already starting to market a new one? I probably would formulate such a conclusion myself but would add that it is premature.

In fact, the SOUL faith groupbuy is also a good example of the below comment. Basically, regardless of what most people were asking for (high performance, new technology etc...), ultimately people still wanted the cheapest possible aluminium frame they could get. It is refreshing to see though that there are customers who are appreciative and identify the value that is presented by the SOUL Faith frame. Despite how some are saying that it didn't turn out to be a lightweight and affordable frame, it is still as light as a Cadd 9, and way cheaper. Sure we could have made the frame 1050g but that would have risked the frame being too flexible and having it only last 1 season which I didn't feel comfortable doing. There must be a reason why Cadd 9s are the weight they are...

The shipping cost is presented separately and I suppose this was a major mistake of mine as I thought that customers would have liked to know the actual breakdown of the cost. But if presented as say USD480 for the frameset (frame + fork + headset + accesories) and 45USD for shipping, people would have thought that it was a great deal. I think sometimes the truth may not be the best way to market a product. Some will also start to argue that USD480 was too expensive for an aluminium frame and they could easily get a Cadd 9 frame for that price on ebay.... but a new Cadd 9 with BB30, a full carbon monoque fork, headset, seatclamp, front derailleur clamp, BB30 adapter?

I do however disagree with the poster that in order to enter the US marketplace with our titanium frames we would need to sell for considerably cheaper and still offer a higher specification frame, then slowly increasing the selling price of our frames once people have a better impression of the quality as they start selling. The titanium frame market just isn't big enough and doesn't work that way as some have also pointed out. But I do have to say after reading all the opinions on here about this matter, I have also finally formulated a way to get our frames more popular in the states.... and a groupbuy is probably not the best option.

I agree with most opinions presented here and if anything else, it has definitely helped in formalising where our titanium frame designs should be headed. It is disheartening to see/ read how some are opposed to me asking for opinions though. I always thought that forums were a good place to gauge where interest in general are so we could either develop new products for the market. We have done really well with this methodology for our S4.0s, our new S2.0Xperts (to be released soon) and the SOUL Faith.

And finally.... in regards to warranties and support, one does not have to look very far away and remember Airborne..... Sure it is correct to say that it will take longer for us to deal with any problems you have, but there is no guarantee that a stateside company would be faster either. This could easily be resolved if we had a US distributor for our frames of course...

Thanks again for all the feedback as usual.


You may get a couple of people on here claiming they want a high performance/spec frame at a good price, but the overwhelming majority are already comparing your proposal to THE CHEAPEST offering on the market. When they buy a Scattante or MotoB, the question is always raised as to whether you can remove the stickers, and there is minimal brand loyalty. If you decide to compete with the cheapest possible offering, then you might as well save additional cost by omitting ALL graphics and just sell a generic raw frame with unfinished welds. Most will not care that they are riding a Soul bike. They just want the cheapest titanium frame humanly possible that will hold up reasonably well. There's nothing wrong with this type of buying decision, but, to regurgitate cliche, "it is what it is."

I guess you must be pretty stressed. And stupid, stinging, typical internet male comments made by bedwetting poopsockers living in their mothers' basments are getting through to you. I think you're doing a great job on here and maybe are getting a little burned out from all the work. Little stupid comments by some people in here that would normally be water off a duck's back probably are a tad hurtful after so much stress.

I think maybe at this point, after you ship the group buy of faiths, you may take a little break? Maybe a little down time to collect your thoughts and get your mind off work would do you some good? I know taking a couple days off of work after a huge project really does wonders for my personal outlook.

I think the reason you're getting a lot of guff about pricing is that people on here instead of riding or shopping in a brick & mortar store because it's pretty much free to be on here. When someone sees something that they want, but it's out of reach, they try to do what they can on here to get the price to a point where it's 'throw away money' so they can justify. You say you can't lose money on a frame like that, and I can't say I blame you, and then they go all pissy and fox & the sour grapes and 'your frame sucks' because you took away their blanky.

Meh, what do I know? I know internet posters are pretty bad, myself included :p

Looking forward to getting my faith :-)

The shipping cost is presented separately and I suppose this was a major mistake of mine as I thought that customers would have liked to know the actual breakdown of the cost. But if presented as say USD480 for the frameset (frame + fork + headset + accesories) and 45USD for shipping, people would have thought that it was a great deal. I think sometimes the truth may not be the best way to market a product. Some will also start to argue that USD480 was too expensive for an aluminium frame and they could easily get a Cadd 9 frame for that price on ebay.... but a new Cadd 9 with BB30, a full carbon monoque fork, headset, seatclamp, front derailleur clamp, BB30 adapter?


Thanks again for all the feedback as usual.

Sean,

I would have liked that if the thread was left on the Road Cycling sub forum as well. However, I have a couple of comments regarding your above statements. The total cost, including the shipping, is what it boils down to. It really doesn't matter what the frame/shipping/extras cost individually, at the end, I will be paying the sum of all those and I will be doing that for a completely unknown, untested frame. Certainly as a manufacturer I find it admirable that you are comparing yourself to the likes of Cannondale, Lynskey and such, but to me (as a lay consumer from whereever part of the world) Soul Bikes is still a unheard small number manufacturer.

You brought up the ebay example for a CAAD9 frame so I'll continue with that one. I can buy a CAAD9 frame set from my local shop for 850 USD, Retail (For the sake of discussion even though it is cheaper to buy a complete bike and part out). If I remember correctly, Soul Faith frame was to be on my doorstep for a total of 550 USD. For 300 USD difference, I don't think trying an unknown is a luxury I can afford as a mainstream layman rider.

As far as the Titanium frame set discussion goes, the only pricing information I can remember seeing is the 2400 USD price tag on your website, which is comparable to the offerings from established manufacturers. A similar train of thought as my CAAD9 vs. Soul Faith comparison comes to mind. Especially in a niche market as Titanium frames, I would be even more scared of trying an unknown overseas manufacturer's product compared to a product that I can get/deal/warranty locally when they are at comparable price points.

That being said you already seem to have made up your mind, so all this is kinda moot. Best of luck with your new market entry ideas. It sure wouldn't hurt for us consumers to have one more brand widely available to us in our respective markets.

I like the idea of a groupbuy based on the Corpus... but I think groupbuys need to have to stay under $1000 (including shipping) to be successful.

I like the Destiny frame with the Stealth C5.0 wheels and SRAM RED.

My problem is that I can get a Lynksey built for me for less.

As MarvinK said. Need to keep frame price under $1000.

What about a titanium 29er? I think there might be less competition in that arena, and it might be something people want?

Beautiful bike!

Sean, I appreciate the research you're trying to do and the conclusions you have already come to. My personal feeling is, the vast majority of buyers are focused on Carbon Fiber...look at Litespeed as an example. They made beautiful Ti frames, but saw the writing on the wall and made the leap to carbon, selling some very nice bikes at very nice prices through multiple vendors. I think there will always be a segment of the cyclist populations that will be true to titanium, just as there are people that are still faithful to steel (hell every major manufacturer still has a steel offering) but is there a market for it or even a group buy? I would say no, titanium is yesterdays carbon fiber. Just my opinion, and I think your ti bikes are incredible, but if I was going to save for a new bike I would just save a little longer for the litespeed m1 on cc. Thanks.