Originally Posted by
phrantic09
Back to the original point, these guys believe Canyon is damaging their business:
https://fitwerx.com/the-canyon-conun...our-next-bike/
In the blog post he states that they aren’t built around a service model, but instead on selling new bikes. Of course, these are the guys that got my wife to spend $5,000 on a 105 equipped Guru as her very first road bike (before we were married) “because it’s custom fit for her”
it is a pretty nice bike though
“We only service bikes from dealer network based brands.”
Yea, no thanks. They are basically admitting trying to create a cartel. Not that it will matter anyway, any independent bike shop could say screw that and just service direct to consumer brands and would get a lot of business.
The more I am reading it, the more it annoys me.
"Instead, their model works to eliminate the dealer from the transaction and to capitalize on the fact that a support network was built by the rest of the industry." - that is inherently a good thing. If you don't have a value to people, as sad as that may be, you don't have a value. And if the only way for him to survive is being a middle man (because that is exactly what he is according to his own logic) then sorry, but he has zero value.
Not to mention, so what, new shops would open up exactly to fill the need for service that does exist. He is talking about "the industry" as if everyone somehow made this huge effort and contribution, akin to say someone building a rail line and others wanting to use that infrastructure for free. This is simply not true. If they all disappeared and everyone bought bikes online, sooner or later service shops would pop up because there'd be a demand for it.
But I don't think, and can't believe, that that is his only value. His expertise and service is his true value. Use that. And if that truly isn't enough, it just means the market was never a good one to begin with. So instead of have x bike shops in y radius, you have x/2 bike shops and y radius, and those x/2 remaining ones make enough. That is Econ 101.
Last edited by ZHVelo; 04-14-20 at 07:13 AM.