Ah the joys of assumption that we all love!
on the topic of deposits… it’s absurd to not require a deposit program for hard goods, although paying in full is a choice I would never make unless it was a special order item that I was asking a store to make on my behalf. Well before the shortages deposits have been the norm to secure a product that was in order. It shows a commitment on both the consumer and dealer’s end. Rent a car, credit hold on reservation to hold the car for you, even some golf courses have started asking for “holds” on tee times to avoid no shows. It’s a thing and the store will be required to give back those deposits.
As the article mentions, this sale was not instantaneous, all parties would have had these discussions during the sale negotiations. I highly doubt (but won’t assume) that specialized’s decision came as any form of surprise, assuming (again), that these deposits on bikes were part of the retailer’s regular booking program.
one interesting thing in all of this is that since PON seems to be a holding group and not seemingly a direct manufacturer is whether or not as part of the sale they had any ability to dictate the products that Mike’s would sell moving forward, but to think that any of these decisions/moves/spin were surprises I just don’t believe it. Heck I see what’s involved in conversations selling a restaurant with revenues of one million a year, I can only imagine the detail work of what seems to be a wildly successful multi unit LBS.
if the long term operating partners of Mike’s are smart, they’ve probably already reached out to those 400 people and worked out a way to move them into a comparable product, without losing their place in line, with a great service package. Assuming (again) that Spec has no personal data on any of those same sales they would be relegated to a generic push in the geographic area to “any specialized customers affected by Mike’s change in ownership”
my .02