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Giant USA to sell direct to consumers

ianjenn

ianjenn

Turbo Monkey
Sep 12, 2006
3,001
704
SLO
"NEWBURY PARK, Calif. (BRAIN) — Giant USA’s general manager John Thompson told Giant dealers Thursday that it will sell bicycles directly to consumers who will collect their purchases at a Giant store.

Giant Gear also will be sold online under a similar system, except the products will be drop-shipped directly to customers and Giant will handle returns without involving dealers. The local store will get 100 percent of the regular margin on the accessory purchase if they stock the product and 80 percent if they don’t."
INFO
 
dan-o

dan-o

Turbo Monkey
Jun 30, 2004
6,499
2,805
With the direct sales up-starts closing the product gap, the IBD model is about to die when it comes to enthusiast bike sales.
The lower end/casual user market will continue but your typical IBD adds nothing (other than higher prices) to the performance mtn bike purchase: limited inventory, limited knowledge, limited reason to exist.
 
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kickstand

kickstand

Turbo Monkey
Sep 18, 2009
3,441
392
Fenton, MI
key word, if the bike shop stocks something.

That's in my opinion what's been the biggest downfall of bike shops over the last 5 years. You may have that good shop in town. But outside of things like cables, lube, and misc. supplies, most shops don't stock much of anything. It makes it hard to spend your money there.
 
Electric_City

Electric_City

Torture wrench
Apr 14, 2007
1,994
716
This won't hurt the LBS, I think it will help. The shop I was at had returning high end customers. One of these guys wanted an S-works Epic 29'er. The shop wasn't an S-works dealer anymore though. The owner called the rep and was able to work something out with him. The buyer/frequent customer didn't pay the full retail either. The shop owner did 10 minutes of work, sold a $10,000 bike and probably made $1,000 profit. This is a rare case, but the point is that you don't have to pay full retail LIKE YOU WOULD HAVE TO online.

With Trek and Giant too, the shop will still get a commission. Less overhead costs and still making a profit off of a bike that you may not have had anything to do with besides assembly? I'm up for that. Imaging selling 3 bikes a day with no time involved? What are the cons? You still get to talk to the customer and build a rapport with them, welcome them, explain your shop and services to them...
 
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6thElement

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,942
13,193
LBS's just got crapped on by Shimano dropping their prices up to 40%, but not retroactively on existing stock. At least going forward that will make US prices in line with European.
 
Kanye West

Kanye West

220# bag of hacktastic
Aug 31, 2006
3,741
473
No shit. I'm actually glad that Shimano is taking a step in that direction. The way prices are going, I think these companies are beginning to risk alienating their entire customer base, especially by having the silly bloated distributor/dealer network to work in a retail subsidy for. Fortunately the price transparency is at an all-time high.

At some point, people WILL stop paying the increased prices for all this cheap, Asian ticky-tocky shit that only lasts a year or less. Lazy-ass local shops who want to collect a cut for picking up the phone and adding no value should be crapping their little pink panties right now, because their cut will be the first to go when things evolve, and they suddenly become unnecessary and irrelevant.
 
StiHacka

StiHacka

Compensating for something
Jan 4, 2013
21,560
12,505
In hell. Welcome!
Hacktastic said:
Lazy-ass local shops who want to collect a cut for picking up the phone and adding no value should be crapping their little pink panties right now, because their cut will be the first to go when things evolve, and they suddenly become unnecessary and irrelevant.
Click to expand...
As long as 9 out of 10 riders I know cannot adjust their RD with a half-turn of the barrel adjuster, their main revenue source is safe.
 
Kanye West

Kanye West

220# bag of hacktastic
Aug 31, 2006
3,741
473
That's right. Their value lies in the service, not in the sales of complete bikes or high-end components. The profit per square foot of each are very far from one another.

The local shop around here that does well is more or less a one-man show, has a minimal amount of product on hand (tires and whatever basic consumables). Probably less than 5 complete bikes, if any, and is just a really solid service guy. I think he's actually grown to more square footage than is needed and probably needs to re-evalute the use of the space, since he has open and fairly empty retail space in the front, and a backlog of service.
 
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