Originally Posted by
pacificcyclist
Vik, I did suggest exactly to Hans Scholz many many times what you told them about more than a decade and a half ago, and his line up has since improved. Now he offers the value package which was then not available. Then, it was more custom.
Having said that, I understand the futile attempt in convincing North Americans and the world to buy into Made in America. The problem with the 75% of customers is not they are not willing to spend on a BF. The problem is with the price tag and their willingly supporting Asian enterprises. How many stuff you buy nowadays aren't made in China or one of the asian countries? Back many many years ago, there were more made in Canada and USA? Why not now?
I do not think BF employees would work for Asian wages and settle for a lower standard of living either.
In the terms of upselling. I had done some upselling for BF in the past as a rep, but it is not out of greed. It is usually out of passion and the best fit for the rider in question. Most of the time I find that the riders are just clueless as to what they want and they are fixated at the lowest cost possible to obtain the bike. This may not be the right bike setup for the rider. In the case of some bikes with flat bars, adding a drop bar with some brifters is an upgrade or an up sell. Whether this is done out of greed from the sales person at BF is someone's opinion. To me, it is the right thing to do to achieve a better fit.
Hope this helps.
Great minds....hahaha...
I don't try and convince most people to buy local and I don't buy local as a firm rule, but when local and a great product coincide I do my best to support the company.
Bike Friday isn't trying to sell a 100,000 bikes a year. They just need to sell enough bikes to keep everyone employed, put a few $$$ into designing updating bikes and save a few %% for a bad year. Their goals are modest so they only need a small part of the bike world to get it.
You are right that most people will simply buy an imported bike because it's cheaper. Just so I don't sound holier than thou - that's why my first folder was a Dahon and why I ended up ordering a Tikit a few months later and not looking back.
Your comments about up selling jive with my experiences with BF and talking to other BF customers. I don't really consider that up selling in the sense steering a customer at the correct bike/setup is exactly your job as a vendor and it doen't have that greed motive implied by up selling. When you frequently see people buy 3 bikes slowly getting to the right one [usually the most expensive one] you can see that buying the correct product the first time actually saves you $$.
I should have simply bought the Tikit first time around, but it took me some hands on time to "get it".