frogmorton

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/produc...r-us-customers

Rolla

Meh. "Under the bus" would mean cutting out their shops altogether. They still offer three ways to buy through a dealer, and added two DTC options. Sounds to me like they're trying to fend off Canyon while maintaining their brick-and-mortar outlets. I'd expect to see more of this.

mprince

I've been on the search for a new helmet and was looking at one from Specialized with the ANGi sensor. Interestingly, an online shop I use a lot gave one price, and I also came across a link where I could also buy the same helmet direct from Specialized for the same price. However, upon further inspection, the online shop includes the sensor with the helmet and buying directly from Specialized forces me to buy the $50 sensor as an add-on. May be a one-off, but seems like the direct model won't work too well for them.

msu2001la

"Across a test period, CW has seen the price of the Specialized Aethos Comp increase from £4,500 to £5,000. With the cost efficiency of selling bikes direct, it'll be interesting to see what the next movement of prices will be."

LOL - I'll help solve this mystery for everyone. Specialized won't be lowering their prices.
At this rate, I'd say we're roughly one product cycle away from a $20k S-Works model.

Polaris OBark

From the consumer's point of view, the advantage of buying direct from Canyon is to save a few hundred bucks. Unless I have misread everything, there is no such cost savings involved for Specialized customers. It might give them the advantage of not having to wait in the LBS ordering queue during the pandemic/bike shortage, but that is about it from what I understand. (I may well be missing something.)

The part about the bike shop getting reduced commission if the customer goes through the store for assembly and delivery I think qualifies as 'throwing under the bus.'

bargainguy

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/reta...l-make-most-it

Dealers are taking multiple hits with this change. Decreased margins. Less inventory available (more diverted to D2C sales). Possibility of no add-on sales with any given bike.

The comments section at the end of the above article gives some insight as to how some dealers are viewing this. It's not good.

Polaris OBark

I guess this is a way to shake down the independently-owned bike shops and coerce them into selling to Specialized.

Trek has similar goals, but I don't think they have implemented the squeeze in quite as brazen a manner.

blurcovenky

Guess that's how capitalism works. Bigger is stronger. I worked at an LBS that sold Specialized bikes and know first hand how the company operates. The house always wins.

TiHabanero

I never miss a legitimate reason so slam Specialized. I worked in a shop that carried SBC bikes from 1994 to the present. In the beginning as they were in the infant stage of development the company was a pleasure to work with. As they grew into a big corp, they became a brand we had to deal with as, much like Trek, the name on the door sells bikes. The first time I met Sinyard he was very pleasant and genuinely nice. He was also hungry and needed us little dealers. The second time I met him around 2010 he was a different person. Someone I would never invite to dinner.
Over at least the last ten years SBC has been working on direct sales models but was unable to dial it in until Canyon paved the way. Trek has also been playing with direct sales models for years and will soon be doing the same thing. I do believe speculation about forcing the larger stores to become SBC stores has merit. Trek is doing the same thing. As time goes on they will buy the successful ones for corp ownership.
Unfortunately the entire retail industry is going to go this way. Look at the auto industry if you think it is impossible.

mprince

So dealers will become franchisees, kind of like owning one or more McDonald's?

ofajen

Folks might find this, similar thread interesting as well:

https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycl...e-upon-us.html

Otto

veganbikes

I cannot wait for all these neanderthals who thought with the leftover Ikea tools from the broken furniture they attempted to put together they could put together the bike, come in for warranty work. That is going to be a nightmare and a half and of course they are going to put up a fuss because Specialized is going to say "you have a warranty" and Specialized of course is going to say yes we will support them and we are SOL because we are providing free service to some idiot who clearly damaged their own bike and didn't even purchase through us.

Look @specializedBicycles you could at least have the common courtesy to give the dealers loads of free mints while you crap down our throats. You had the Click to Brick stuff and that was fine for the folks who couldn't be bothered to just buy from a shop like a normal person they at least still are getting their bike properly assembled and having to come into a shop. Why this? We have enough of a tough time already and made you tons of money through the pandemic why now are you further attacking dealers. If you don't want Specialized dealers then just tell us and be honest about it don't just continue getting nasty there is no reason for that.

icemilkcoffee 

If they are selling their bikes online at the same price points as the dealers, then I don't see how they are screwing the dealers. I bought a new Specialized bike for my wife in early 2020. It was pretty hard to find the XS size Sirrus that she wanted. I would have appreciated the chance to order that bike online. As it happened, we did find the bike in that XS size locally, but not in the color she wanted. We just bought the bike nonetheless. I imagine the local stores typically just carried in stock bikes in the 'usual sizes', and in the popular colors, and not the outlier sizes in oddball colors, which might sit on the showroom floor for months gathering dust. Having an online ordering option would allow Specialized to sell the oddly configured bikes directly to consumers.
The internet is good at catering to 'Long Tail' consumer needs. Bicycle retailing is no different.

Koyote

I find this difficult to believe, since Spec simply sells some helmets with ANGI and others without...And I can't imagine that an independent seller would add it to a helmet, since they just sell the products as they are supplied by the mfr. I think you have likely misread something.

mprince

That is a distinct possibility, but I looked up the
PROPERO III ANGI MIPS HELMET (sorry for caps, I copied and pasted) on Excel Sports Boulder and it clearly states the sensor is integrated/included, and when I look up the same helmet on the Spec site it's listed as Propero 3 (no ANGi designation), same price, and has this note: "This helmet is ANGi ready, with a fit system mount designed for easy integration with our ANGi crash sensor."

So not sure what to make of that, but it's somewhat a moot point as I likely will buy something from a different manufacturer.​​​​​

Koyote

Hmm, it does look that way. Weird! FWIW, I have a Spec helmet that came with ANGI, but I don't use it. I don't need another app running on my phone while I ride, draining the battery. And really, a helmet that sends a text msg to my wife when I crash? Why? So she can immediately start building her eHarmony profile?

raceboy

Best joke of the day on Bike Forums!

PeteHski

From the perspective of a customer, the only neanderthals I've come across are the cheap labour kids working in retail bike shops. IME they can't put together bikes better than the guys working at Canyon. I just took delivery of a new Canyon and the build quality is excellent. Just had it up on the stand and the drivetrain setup is perfect. The bike shops that are actually thriving where I live are more into the service/fitting/custom build side anyway. They don't even bother stocking ready built bikes. The local shops that sell off-the-shelf Specialized etc in my area all have abysmal service. They make it very easy for the likes of Canyon to take away their business.

PeteHski

Corrected for you^

TiHabanero

No, not a franchise agreement.

livedarklions

How long has this writing been on the wall?

Local retail is declining in almost every sector of the economy. What LBS can offer that can't be provided online is service, the ones that are going to survive are going to rely less and less on the margin of sales for their bottom line.

DorkDisk

I have been through a similar experience when Diamondback suddenly went online without notifying their dealer base; at least we were caught flatfooted. What used to be our economic line suddenly stopped selling. Instead, we saw an uptick of people who bought their bikes online and had them delivered to us for assembly. DB would pay us for assembly, not too bad a deal. Except that we had all this inventory paid for, and we couldn't move them; and we had no low-mid models to offer people anymore. Then DB lowered their prices aggressively online; we ended up matching those prices and losing money on each bike that we paid for.

downhillmaster

You have proof of this?

Sy Reene

I presume the issue is that bike inventory will have trouble making it to the dealers if the online selling entity is selling most of the supply. Which is of course advantageous to Specialized as they keep all of the markup instead of sharing some with the bike shops.

Sy Reene

I don't know about proof, and someone will likely nitpick about the component quality differences or something, but one could compare
CANYON CFR AERO
with
SWORKS SL7