Originally Posted by
Squeeze
I've been suspicious of this whole deal since I first clicked the link in some other thread at this forum (it has been widely discussed) and was asked for personal information before seeing any bikes or prices.
It sounds like a data harvesting operation to me: they sell bikes at dealer cost (my guess) to maybe 10% or 20% of people who create an account, but gain data for future marketing and to sell to other marketers for everyone who is curious enough about prices to go through the registration process at their site.
If the parent company is already selling bikes at dealer cost and lets a few slip out the door directly to customers in exchange for thousands of marketing contacts, what's the harm?
Nothing, I guess, except the local dealers must be highly upset...IF my assumptions are correct, which they very well may not be.
Good lord.
- You have been suspicious?...its a company legitimately selling their products for cheap. Its a benefit to them still, otherwise they would stop.
- If their goal is to just get a bunch of email contacts, they could do that 50 better ways than selling bikes at discounted prices. 50 better and easier ways. Come on- email addresses have been passed around 50x over for years and years now.
- As for dealers being pissed, a local shop used to carry Raleigh and they are working on selling the last of their inventory. They went another direction since Raleigh has pushed online sales for less than what the dealer sells em for.