The American bicycle market is dominated by the four largest brands, which I call the top four: Trek, Specialized, Giant and Cannondale, in order of size. Together, these brands appear in more than half of bicycle stores in the United States, and may account for the largest share of new bicycle sales in the country.
As I mentioned in this space before, the biggest challenge for each member of Quadrumvirate is to distinguish themselves from the other three members. In mature categories like bicycles, technological gains are gradual at best, which makes retail stores the main target of differentiation. (See footnote: Is a vendor-owned store a “real” bicycle store?)
But if independent bicycle dealers make any sense, they are independent. In the struggle for in-store brand control, the only way for suppliers to control their product inventory, display, and sales is to strengthen their control over the retail environment itself.
In the 2000s, this led to the development of concept stores, a retail space mainly dedicated to a single brand. In exchange for floor space and control of things like displays, signs and fixtures, suppliers provide retailers with financial support and access to internal marketing resources.
Since the mid-2000s, Trek, Specialized, and Giant have been involved in the retail industry in the United States and the world. But since around 2015, as a generation of retailers that emerged during the bicycle boom and mountain bike era approached their retirement age, Trek has been the most active pursuit of ownership.
Interestingly, each member of Quadrumvirate pursues different strategies in the retail ownership game. I contacted the executives of the four major players for comments and analysis.
“In retail, we believe that having a bright future is a very good business. We have long been committed to investing in the success of our retailers, and our retail experience has helped us expand and refine these efforts.”
This is a speech by Eric Bjorling, Director of Brand Marketing and Public Relations at Trek. For Trek, the company-owned bicycle store is only part of a larger seamless strategy to achieve overall retail success.
I spoke with Roger Ray Bird, who was the director of Trek’s retail and concept store from the end of 2004 to 2015, on this matter.
“We are not going to build all the company’s retail store network like we do now,” he told me.
Bird continued, “John Burke kept saying that we want independent retailers instead of us to operate stores in their markets because they can do better than us. (But he later) turned to full ownership because he wanted A consistent brand experience, customer experience, product experience, and a full range of products available to consumers in various stores.”
The inevitable conclusion is that Trek currently runs the largest bicycle chain in the United States, if not the largest chain in the history of the industry.
Speaking of various stores, how many stores does Trek currently have? I posed this question to Eric Bjorling.
“It’s just like our sales and specific financial information,” he told me via email. “As a privately held company, we don’t release this data publicly.”
very fair. But according to BRAIN researchers, Trek has publicly announced the acquisition of approximately 54 new US locations on the bicycle retailer’s website in the past decade. It also announced vacancies in another 40 locations, bringing its total to at least 94 stores.
Add this to Trek’s own dealer locator. According to the data of George Data Services, it lists 203 locations with Trek in the store name. We can estimate that the total number of Trek stores owned by the company is between 1 and 200. between.
What matters is not the exact number, but the inevitable conclusion: Trek currently runs the largest bicycle chain in the United States, if not the largest chain in the history of the industry.
Perhaps in response to Trek’s recent multi-store purchases (Goodale’s (NH) and Bicycle Sports Shop (TX) chains were Specialized retailers before they were purchased), Jesse Porter, Head of Sales and Business Development of Specialized USA, wrote to Specialized Distributors1 It will be released nationwide on the 15th.
If you are considering divesting, investing, exiting or transferring ownership, we have options you might be interested in???? From professional financing or direct ownership to helping identify local or regional investors, we want to ensure that the community you are working hard to develop is sustainable Get the products and services they expect without interruption.
Follow-up via email, Porter confirmed that there are already many specialty stores. “We have owned and operated the retail industry in the United States for more than 10 years,” he told me, “including stores in Santa Monica and Costa Mesa. In addition, we have experiences in Boulder and Santa Cruz. center.”
â???? We are actively seeking market opportunities, part of which is to ensure that the riders and riding communities we serve receive uninterrupted service. â????â????Jesse Porter, professional
When asked about the company’s plans to acquire more distributors, Porter said: “We are currently in dialogue with multiple retailers to discuss their succession plans. We are approaching this initiative with an open mind, not Decided to acquire the target number of stores.” The most important thing is, “We are actively seeking market opportunities, part of which is to ensure that the riders and cycling communities we serve receive uninterrupted service.”
Therefore, Specialized seems to be developing the dealer acquisition business more deeply as needed, presumably to protect or expand its foothold in key markets.
Next, I contacted John “JT” Thompson, the general manager of Giant USA. When asked about store ownership, he was firm.
“We are not in the retail ownership game, period!” he told me in an email exchange. “We have all the company’s stores in the United States, so we are well aware of this challenge. Through that experience, we learned day after day that) retail store operation is not our specialty.
“We have determined that our best way to reach consumers is through competent and energetic retailers,” Thompson continued. “As a business strategy, we gave up store ownership when formulating retail support execution. We do not believe that company-owned stores are the best way to adapt to the localized retail environment in the United States. Local love and knowledge are the main goals of the store’s success story. Create a positive experience while building long-term customer relationships.”
Finally, Thompson said: “We do not compete with our retailers in any way. They are all independent. This is a natural behavior of a brand managed by people from the retail environment. retailers are the most in this industry. For people who work hard, if we can make their lives a little less challenging and a little more rewarding, that would be very cool in our opinion.”
Finally, I raised the issue of retail ownership with Nick Hage, General Manager of Cannondale North America and Japan.
Cannondale once owned three company-owned stores; two in Boston and one in Long Island. “We only owned them for a few years, and we closed them five or six years ago,” Hage said.
Cannondale has gained market share in the past three years as more and more distributors abandon the single-brand strategy.
“We have no plans to enter the retail industry (again),” he told me in a video interview. “We remain committed to working with high-quality retailers that support multi-brand portfolios, provide quality customer service, and help build cycling in the community. This remains our long-term strategy.
“Retailers have repeatedly told us that they don’t want to compete with suppliers, nor do they want suppliers to control their business too much,” Hager said. “As more and more distributors abandon the single-brand strategy, Cannondale’s market share has grown in the past three years, and in the past year, retailers were unable to put all their eggs in one supplier’s basket. We see this. “This is a huge opportunity to continue to play a leading role with independent distributors. IBD will not disappear, good retailers will only become stronger. ”
Since the collapse of the bicycle boom in 1977, the supply chain has been in a more chaotic period than we have seen. The four leading bicycle brands are adopting four distinct strategies for the future of bicycle retail.
In the final analysis, moving to vendor-owned stores is neither good nor bad. This is how it is, the market will determine whether it succeeds.
But this is the kicker. As product orders are currently extended to 2022, retailers will not be able to use the checkbook to vote in the company’s own stores, even if they wish. At the same time, suppliers on the retail acquisition path can continue to go unpunished, while those that only adopt the  strategy will find it difficult to gain market share, because retailers’ open buying dollars have promised to cooperate with their existing suppliers. In other words, the trend of supplier-owned stores will only continue, and no resistance from distributors (if any) will be felt in the next few years.