Originally Posted by
himespau
Mike's new owners probably look at it as a chance to try to convert some of those sales to their bikes. Specialized probably look at it as a chance to move 400 other people/shops further up in the line and build goodwill with those customers since, if the Mike's buyers were loyal to the lbs, they wouldn't be necessarily retained as Specialized customers anyway. I bet things would have turned out differently (potentially including 400 people not having already paid in deposits for bikes on order to jerk around) had we not been in a global bike shortage at the moment.
Exactly! Power changes people / things. I thought building customer's loyalty was the most important thing in the bike industry given that you don't buy a bike every year and that a happy client will be a returning client at some point, but this doesn't seem to be as important as before since summer 2020.
400 potential furious customers doesn't make much difference when there are thousands of others around on waiting lists that would be even willing to pay more than the MSRP just to get one quicker.
Now, is it Mike's that got rid of Specialized at the speed of light or is it Specialized that ended their business with Mike's as soon as they heard that it had been sold to Pon? It may be our answer.