Originally Posted by TiHabanero

"Specialized is putting a lot of chips behind D2C, and both retailers and consumers will have the opportunity to vote on that bet with their dollars in 2022 and beyond."

The quote above came from a BRAIN opinion piece written by Rick Vosper. As most cycling enthusiasts know Specialized has been direct to consumer for quite a few years, first with a hybrid model, and now bypassing the dealer completely. At first it was OK as revenues were given to the dealer who then delivered the product to the consumer. With the bypass of the dealer and shipping direct to the consumer the dealer collects less than half the revenue it would have under the hybrid program. This is still a win for the dealer as he had zero dollars invested in the sale other than the folks that bought direct from Specialized after wasting the time of a bike shop employee gathering information and selecting a bike in a dealer showroom. Dealer did the work and received a very poor margin if any on the sale. Nice job SBC.

All the dealers know that once the D2C program becomes established and the kinks worked out SBC will cut the dealer out of the loop completely. Our local Specialized dealer where I worked full and part time over the past 40 years is going through with their orders this spring, but after that they are moving on to another brand. It is my hope that all the SBC dealers in the USofA join together and drop the SBC brand. Let Specialized eat their own ****.