Chained Reaction

I don’t often get up on my soapbox, largely because I never really come down off it in the first place, but my vex du jour in the bike industry is actually a personal one. I’m pissed off about the trade war currently raging in the bike industry.

No, not that one–though, yeah, I suspect it’ll be a while before consumers in China develop a need for King headsets.

I’m talking about unique import practices–like the BMWs sawed in half you see up there. Doing that doesn’t do much for resale value, but it does let you import a BMW into the Ukraine for much less than a whole car would cost in fees.

As long as there have been different governments and currencies, somebody’s been making out on the differences, and it’s pretty common in the bike industry. But today I’m not talking about China, or even the Ukraine.

I’m talking about the problem of Irish imports.

Maybe best I be specific: I’m talking about Chain Reaction Cycles. It’s utter bullshit that a company like Chain Reaction can be based in a country that permits zero pricing regulation from distributors or manufacturers while still being allowed to sell into the U.S. market–a market where both online and brick and mortar dealers have their hands tied when it comes to pricing. Sure, the story of Chain Reaction is hard work and smart planning, but there’s also something to be said for handcuffing your opponent before proceeding to beat the living shit out of him, and that’s been their business model for years.

Reps tell tales of this company’s shipping rates being subsidized by the Irish government because they employ like a tenth of Ireland or something. Some say they’re all eight feet tall and can rip phone books in half (also provided free by the Irish government). Others say one year employment there automatically makes you a member of Irish parliament and gives you papal dispensation to kill in the name of God.

Reps sometimes exaggerate.

At any rate, bullshit, this, or bollocks. Whatever. Sour milk, sure, but there’s insult amidst the injury here, too.

Last Friday, one of the more recognizable companies in the bike industry lurched back into their three year cycle of baseball batting the knees of online retailers in the U.S.. Meanwhile, almost all their products are available at prices at or near our cost from Chain Reaction, who’ll gladly ship them right to your door here in these Americas.

But the worst is shoes. Back when Chain Reaction was first starting to advertise in the U.S. market, I literally had a rep for a shoe manufacturer tell me they were–and I am serious–“poor potato farmers just trying to sell anything they can to survive.”

Um. OK.

Fast forward over a decade and now we’re being told we have to raise prices even on shoes that have been replacing with newer models here in the U.S., lest we be able to sell those shoes into parts of Europe, where they’re still current.

So up we go to MSRP.

On the shoe in question, Chain Reaction is advertising it openly for $100 less than MSRP.

Sympathy isn’t the goal here. I’m a “mail order” guy by brick and mortar standards, and though my path to bike ecommerce was carved through the solid rock of custom bicycle assembly and absurdly time-consuming phone and email customer service, I still get that some shops hate the online guys. Guilty. We send shit in the mail.

But seriously. There’s a big difference between any online retailer in the U.S. and one free to operate with no pricing rules. It’s bad enough that we have to compete with both hands tired behind our back. I’d be nice if the manufacturers helping drive both online and brick and mortar bike shops out of business didn’t pretend it was a level playing field out there. It’s not.

We’re not even playing the right kind of football.