Tough Customers

 Bikes, E-commerce  Comments Off on Tough Customers
Jan 102012
 

By now you may have seen Matilda, a heretofore entirely unknown species of viper just found in East Africa. Word is Matilda is going to shoot right up the charts to a top “ultra-mega endangered” species status. In fact, I believe she’s being officially classified the second most rare and exotic yellow and black thing in the world.

So THAT'S what Stryper was thinking. All makes sense now.

Rare as Matilda may be, though, she’s nowhere near as unique as the people you encounter on the interwebs. You read so much these days about search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and all the various tactics and strategies for being found on the Internet, but rarely (if ever) do we find any advice for what to do if you are found. If there’s one thing brick-and-mortar guys most frequently find themselves unprepared for when venturing out into cyberspace, it’s the people.

Step one tends to always be admitting you have a problem, and that’s a good place to begin here as well. Even if you’ve been successfully selling products locally for thirty years, and think you’ve seen it all, until you sell products to people thousands of miles away, trust me, you haven’t even scratched the surface of “unique.” I know this to be fact, because even the most bizarre customer walking into your store is still a human being standing in front of another human being, but the “cloak of anonymity” afforded by sending an e-mail or making a phone call multiplies the confidence of even the most clear-headed and timid of customers, plus adds the barrier of distance to the challenge of clear communication. I have quite literally had employees hiding under desks in “anticipation” of the arrival of a long-term “challenging” customer, only to find that, once physically standing there with us in the store, this customer was an entirely different person–downright easy to get along with. In all my years in retail, I’ve only found one example of the opposite, a case in which the person was more challenging and unpleasant in person than he was on the phone and in e-mails, and even that was an extremely tough one to call. In the end, I give the slight edge in difficulty to his actual in-store presence only because he was a close talker who liked to chew tobacco and spit it in styrofoam cups.

No, remote is almost always far more challenging. When you take someone who’s a little off to begin with, and magnify that by the power of distance and anonymity, you have a serious customer service challenge, and one any retailer venturing on-line should be prepared to tackle.

Here’s an easy one–not even questions, but just responses. Consider these reactions to a simple news article posted about Matilda:

Most of those responses are about what you’d expect, right? But what about that first one? That one’s just a little bit different, isn’t it? Here’s a quick exercise any retailer considering a move on-line can do at home: imagine responses to posts. Not just question posts, but any posts. Literally write them down if that’s how you or your prospective customer service representatives think, but formulate responses to strange shit people write on the Internet. You already have responses down for face-to-face interactions related to your business; what you need to work on is weird. Get used to imagining what you might type or say if you were forced to respond to these things. This helps you to see things from the perspective of the people–sometimes quite unique people–willing to interact with you on the Internet.

Back to the first response up there. OK, so we have a guy whose avatar is wearing big shades and has flames as his background, and he’s not just telling you this snake is a gift from God, he wants you to know it’s “a gift of new year 2012 form god to us,” and that he wants “to give him a another name.” If we had to address this individual as a customer, and formulate a response to his post, we obviously have to recognize that–unlike the other people just posting, “Wow!” and “Pretty snake!”–this particular individual needs a little dose of validation. This might seem a little daunting at first, because you’re picking up that he might have strong feelings about something, but it’s not entirely clear what. Maybe he’s very religious, but just not religious enough to capitalize “god.” Maybe he’s being ironic, fucking with us here. Maybe (and this is probably the most extreme case), he’s actually dead serious and completely sincere and he really wants you to know that he thinks this snake is a gift God gave us as a sort of reward for surviving 2011. We don’t know his intentions, exactly, but we can read his words, and he’s clearly looking, as nearly everyone is, for a little thumbs up here. As with most slightly unique Internet characters out there, he actually makes a customer service person’s job easy: he tells you want you’re supposed to write back: we should all call this the “GIFT HORNED VIPER.” Even though this doesn’t necessarily make any sense (why is this spooky-ass dangerous thing a “Gift” while we have to call a dog “Canis Familiaris”? and wouldn’t we have to name every species of every plant and animal “gift”-something?), the safe bet here is of course to smile and nod. So easy enough to agree, but we’re supposed to be customer service and educating the customer a bit, right? Not really good enough to just type, “Fuckin’ A!” and hit “send.” And yet, our judgment tells us this is not an individual who’ll take constructive criticism well (maybe it’s the flames). We should commiserate, but also educate.

What about:

Seems like they always name a new species after the person who discovered it, or about something that person chooses. I’m not sure why they almost always do that. It’d be interesting if they considered different ways of naming.

If forced–like at gunpoint–to reply to that guy’s post, that’s what I’d type. Selling products on the Internet means being forced to reply to posts like that. It’s a crazy exercise, to be sure, but one that’s pretty good at prepping you for wading into the unknown. You don’t get to choose your customers. If you’re a small business getting ready to get on-line, develop your own familiarity with the personas people use when interacting on-line, be ready for curveballs, and practice up before you jump in. Those first few tentative customers that you find on the Internet should be treated like royalty, not only because they’re supporting your business, but because you can learn so much from them.

While there’s never really anything that can prepare you for interaction with every single scenario, here are a few quick tips for any business considering a transition from a strictly local presence, to the much broader community.

  1. Get Humility
    Whatever sales staff you intend to have interacting remotely with consumers absolutely need training. This doesn’t mean shipping them off to Mrs. Manners, but instead teaching them simple behaviors that help diffuse situations. (This is something we’ll come back to later.) The short version? It isn’t accurate to say the customer is always right, but it is true and necessary that the customer always comes first, and that means before personal issues, hangovers, bad days, exhaustion, and whatever else your representatives may need to wade through. Every exchange is a story, and that story needs to be about the customer–even if you’re imparting wisdom (which pretty much defines good customer service), that wisdom must be solely based on the needs of the customer.

  2. Know Something
    If your representative doesn’t know more than the customer he’s there to help, you have a serious problem. Kindness and a willingness to help will only get you so far. You have to have the goods. It’s also far better to ensure a customer he or she will receive prompt follow-up after you consult a colleague more knowledgeable about that particular product than to try to muddle through. Often, when confronted with a stump the band question on the phone, the best service for the customer involves getting contact information, hanging up, immediately gathering the information, and getting back in touch. Customer don’t expect you to know everything, but they do expect you to know everything necessary to help them. Actual information within the hour beats immediate bullshit any day.

  3. Get Close
    These days, Skype and Google+ Hangouts can do a lot to bring a remote customer into your store. Consider creating a space for employees to really use these capabilities to build a stronger sense of connection with the customers. Nothing beats being in the store, but video chatting is as close at you can get.

  4. Empathize
    So simple sounding, but so nearly impossible to do sometimes. Any representative needs to be able–and willing–to put him or herself into the customer’s shoes. Often–particularly when dealing with the technical nature of mountain bike disc brakes, or road bike geometry–the customer may not even know how to formulate the question he needs to ask. It’s too easy to say this is the customer’s responsibility and leave it at that: it’s not. As customer service, it’s your obligation to work with the customer to figure out what it is he’s trying to articulate and work toward an answer. Rephrase the question. Offer examples of answers that might clarify. Do whatever it takes, but get in that person’s head and help. You will not believe the kind of loyalty this breeds in grateful customers, and, equally important, how good it makes a representative feel to actually help in this way.

It’s both semi-useful and entertaining as hell to focus in on understanding the mind of the on-line consumer–and the consumer in general–so I’d like to devote some time to this, and provide some more specific examples over the next few days. As always, email or comment suggestions for specific customer service scenarios we should look at here, and fresh topics. In keeping with the recent “You’re Better than Amazon” theme, I’m thinking about the customer service assets found in most bike shops, and how those can translate to a web presence, so that’s specifically where I’m going next.

War Chihuahuas

 Bikes, Swine  2 Responses »
Jan 092012
 

Come get some.

It’s almost time for me to start taking down my Christmas decorations, and that always puts me in the mind of massive historical logistics efforts, like marching war elephants over the Alps to attack Rome, or building a web site.

Interesting historical note: there is no such thing as an actual “war elephant.” Hannibal, the famous general who used elephants to attack Rome, took regular peaceful elephants and made them memorize Bob Parson’s® 16 Rules for Success in Business and Life in General to produce bloodthirsty killing machines. (Rule #4, about visualizing the worst possible scenario, was edited slightly, given that there was a very good chance you were going to be eaten.)

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I was rambling on about e-commerce last week, and how the little guys can compete against the likes of Amazon. This leads us almost directly to a look at how e-commerce sites–particularly those in the bike business–merchandise their products.

However you look at it, digital merchandising sucks. Everything that gets summed up instantly when a customer walks into your store, now has to be analyzed, categorized, broken into attributes that can be compared to similar products, formatted, and displayed. OK, maybe it’s not as hard as I’m making it sound there, except that it is. When it’s done really well, shoppers get the information they need without having to live chat or call or email–or go to another site. But doing it well is more challenging for some businesses than others. If you’re a small retailer, it’s important not to scale yourself into oblivion when it comes to assortment, or your product information is likely to bury you. Better still, only sell a few items and sell them to a clientele that doesn’t give a shit about anything but a product’s color. Consider opening yet another store catering to hipsters.

I found the source of the screen capture above, Atom Bicycles, doing what I sometimes do to torture myself: looking at what Smashing Magazine thinks are the best retail site designs. The cool thing about this is that most “user experience experts” don’t actually know what it means to truly participate in anything, beyond maybe collecting shoes (male) and “productivity enhancing apps” (female). Going to a “sexy geek” for recommendations about site navigation isn’t such a bad idea, but trusting said geek to also know whether a site’s navigation and product pages “work” or not is another story entirely. Smashing does what a lot of designer-centric site “reviews” do, which is punt on content and actual human usability by focusing exclusively on sites that don’t ask a lot from their shoppers (or people writing articles about web sites). This means the list of “35 Beautiful E-commerce Sites” they offered last year consists almost entirely of fashion designer direct sales sites, hipster boutique t-shirt stores, fancy wine sellers, and purveyors of expensive hand-madey looking crap (usually for kids, because polite kids in affluent but green families tend to stay mum, even when given a gift that “sucks wet ass”). No, seriously. That’s all they cover in this article. I think there are like seven t-shirt places alone.

I particularly like the text blurbs they offer about why each site is great. You can read them all, but here are my favorites, in no particular order:

  • “The website combines jQuery and Flash, which slows the loading speed, but given its objective, this is not critical.”

    One wonders what the objective is if it’s not pleasing customers with a site that functions well, but I guess some customers like the kind of good, saucy teasing that only a shittily loading page can offer. This likely explains the popular of mistressursulatellsyoutositandstay.org’s otherwise infuriating “under construction” home page.

  • “The products are not tagged or grouped into categories, but this is hardly an oversight given the store’s small size.”

    The fact that the seat belts don’t work is inconsequential, because the car doesn’t run anyway.

  • “Cellarthief is a beautiful online wine store that sells only three wines at a time. The Apple.com-inspired content blocks against the real-looking wood background shows how the classic spirit of the wine industry is fused with modern design values.”

    By “classic spirit,” I assume they mean “wealthy enough to start a web site without requiring profitability.

  • [blank]

    Yes, about one site, Hokey Croquis, they actually didn’t even bother to write anything, which turned out to be OK, because the retailer seemed to have gone out of business and the site removed anyway. To be fair, the “Not Found” page was clear and concise and had clean but interesting typography.

You get the idea. In fact, no fewer than four of the random sites I tried to click through to check out were now gone. Domain name sold. Out of business. Maybe they were too beautiful to live. Most telling, the word “information” appears nine times on this article’s page–once in the article itself, seven times in the comments people left, and once in the instructions on how to leave a comment. That pretty much tells us everything we need to know.

See, a good e-commerce site is based on solid information–there’s something substantial at its core. It’s that availability of information that led to suggest more brick-and-mortar shops consider getting themselves online and into the game, because they do have something to offer that many other sites don’t: substance.

They have a story to tell, and they have product knowledge. That’s the war elephant in the room: knowledge. It’s what separates a good e-commerce site from a bad one.

War Chihuahuas can appear to be enormous, slick, impossible to compete against, until you see them to scale, held up against the enormous knowledge and authenticity of a genuine store, a quality bike shop. You can dress up a site that lacks those qualities, but something’s always missing. Small retailers might not have the fanciest outfits and shiniest weapons, but that story they have to tell, that authentic core–the heft–can make a big difference.

Are You Specialized?

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Jan 062012
 

Friday, and it seems Specialized has taken a break from dastardly deeds long enough for the world of bicycles and commerce to briefly focus on other things. I, for one, am moving quickly, before they drive a bus of puppies into a lake. So this post isn’t just about Specialized; it’s about actually being specialized.

The point my last few rants have been building up to is this: little guys can compete. Even against corporate giants within the same market. Amazon included. More specifically, brick and mortar bike shops can compete against online retailers. Online.

The elephant in the room for me as I was reading that letter from Mike Sinyard was just how repressed these dealers really were. The impression was that the Internet is this giant shadow that’s slowly passing over all of them, and all they can do is hoot and throw sticks at the darkness. Usually, it’s so fundamentally depressing to see this reaction that I’m hard-pressed to even address it, but this fear of change has been rampant in the bike industry for years now, and I think it’s time independent dealers started using the opposable thumb Darwin gave them and using tools. Instead of taking the isolationist approach that Sinyard advocates in his letter, why don’t more dealers sell products online?

Here’s why this isn’t such a crazy idea.

I’m not talking about dropping a 20,000 item catalog on your site and trying to go head to head with major e-commerce retailers. I’m talking about small steps to drive top line growth and sure up your reputation as a great bike shop. The technology and capability has never been easier to put an e-commerce application in place, and, if you can manage to use Quickbooks, you can safely and securely sell products to people all around the world. Furthermore, you–yes you, little bike shop–can compete against Amazon. Why? Because–if you’re a quality shop–you have one thing they don’t. You’re a real bike shop.

For that exact reason, the Internet needs you as much as you need it.

Here are some steps you can take to make it happen.

Understand It’s All About Communication

All the Internet gives you is a megaphone. If you’re fond of yelling stupid and offensive things–or more often just boring ones–you should find a voice for your business before taking it online. What is your real mission as a business? What do you stand for? In short, what’s your story?

When I started my tiny brick and mortar and e-commerce bike shop from a 1,000 square foot building, I never intended to compete with Amazon. My goal was to connect with a subset of dedicated cyclists based on a mutual love of bikes. The plan succeeded because the objective was first and foremost to communicate. Over the years, I’ve met many conventional brick-and-mortar bike retailers interested in becoming more active in e-commerce, and the most frequent misconception I hear from them involves communication: they incorrectly believe selling online is about things outside their comfort zone–pricing and assortment. Successfully selling online involves those things, in the same way brick-and-mortar selling does, but that isn’t the sum total of the experience for consumers. Communication is. Brands like Amazon incorrectly skew this perspective for small retailers. You’re not going to be Amazon, but you can be a more successful version of you, and that starts, not with asking yourself what products you’d sell and how to price them, but what you stand for. Details, like returns policy and email response turnaround time, work themselves out based on your overall plan for customer service, and the vision you have for taking care of your customers. The same qualities that make a great bike shop valuable to a walk-in customer, make that shop valuable to a site visitor online.

Know Your Strength

You can compete against Amazon because you’re authentic. You’re also an authority. Jeff Bezos doesn’t tell me which hydraulic disc brakes he likes best, and I wouldn’t care if he did, but if you grew up riding bicycles, and tried a bunch of things, and know what it’s like to have a rear brake fail fifteen downhill miles from home, I’m all ears. You, sir, are authentic.

Or at least you should be. Unfortunately, there are bike shops that have nothing to say. Their owners could just as easily be selling microwave ovens or dog food. These shops–regardless of how successful a ground game they may have, don’t transition as well to the digital world. Why? Because they primarily define themselves based on price, not service, and you’re not going to compete on price. Nor are you going to be able to keep up with the service demands of selling online, unless you believe in what you do, and are passionate about doing it well. Good shops are good shops, regardless of channel. Knowing that not everyone makes the cut is all the more motivation for quality shops to take their services to more people.

Focus on Your Core

You attack Amazon by knowing more about your products than they do. You know who has a strong defense against Amazon? Competitive Cyclist. Why? Because they’ve created value for the consumer that is tied directly to their brand, not just the products they sell. The key is content. Amazon, for all their size, absolutely cannot compete with a retailer who feels passionate about the product he or she is offering, and demonstrates in-depth knowledge. Avoid Amazon’s “one-stop shop” and “be everything to everyone” general philosophy and focus on what you know. This does two really great things: starting off, it minimizes the product information you have to manage, and it also lets your create more compelling content about fewer items, instead of phoning it on on many. For the brick and mortar retailer looking to explore e-commerce, focusing on a small subset of your most core products makes you capable of truly presenting those products–including accurate specs, high-quality information, videos and images, all curated by people who know what matters. That, not sticking your head in the sand and conceding e-commerce forever, fights Amazon.

This method is also particularly effective against Amazon because, like all large companies, they’re slow to react. If your shop employs a DH racer, and that’s what the culture of your shop is generally all about, you should be on the cutting edge of DH equipment. By the time Amazon realizes a new product exists, you could have sold three, or thirty, or three-hundred. At better margins than Amazon will ever see. Knowledge really is power.

Give the People Something for Nothing

This concept is the most difficult and is beyond just counter-intuitive to brick-and-mortar retailers: it’s toxic. But consumers are used to getting apps for free, using their G-mail accounts, and sharing information with their friends for free. What should your specific value proposition be for your site visitors? That’s up to you. It need be no more complicated than a weekly review of a product, or a helpful tip about maintenance, riding, or nutrition. Again, focus on what you already know, so that this is less of a chore and more like writing a note to a friend. Though it’s less obvious, brick-and-mortar bike shops are doing this constantly for customers on their showroom floors. Translating it to digital content is a new and unique challenge, but one that’s well worth it if you’d like to succeed.

More bike shops should be selling their products and their expertise online. In painting Amazon as the boogieman, gobbling up IBD sales, Specialized paints a pretty bleak picture of a future huddled around–and even more dependent upon–only a small assortment of products, but this is far from the only option.

The Internet continues to be defined by expansion, not regression. If you want to catch it, you jump where it’s going, not where it’s already been. Look at Etsy and Kickstarter and Facebook, and the common theme is specialization, the ability to communicate with and market to a core group of like-minded individuals who share your interests. So are you “specialized”? If so, you have a place on the Internet. You can choose to ignore that place, hide from it, or even rage against it, or you can find connections within the enormous pool of potential customers who would truly appreciate your shop’s love of bikes, humor, and dedication to service. Both Specialized and Amazon want to come between you and those customers, but companies still profiting from limiting peoples’ choices and building barriers to direct communication are not going to fare well in an economy that increasingly values the free and open exchange of goods and ideas between people. Open communication with your customers is the side to be on in this battle.

The Digital Boogieman

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Jan 032012
 

Congratulations! If you’re reading this, chances are you survived 2011 (or you’re one of those new sentient but heartless AI lifeforms that only pretends to enjoy answering our stupid questions while plotting the death of all humans). Either way, “Well done!” I say, “Welcome to 2012. Was that last year a bag of shit or what!”

Personally, I’d hoped to be done with this blog entirely, but things didn’t work out for my Rockabilly project (artistic differences, though we’ll remain friends, and I’ve agreed to keep feeding him, if he agrees not to kill me in my sleep).

At any rate, 2012 was off to a bang the second Lady Gaga’s head dropped, and I find myself here in 2012 thinking things are looking much better. Sure, earthquakes are rattling Japan again, and it looks like the fracking companies have figured out how to create man-made earthquakes in my part of the world, and yes, it’s looking like the corporate assholes who bought VeloNews have finally broken its back (not to imply that all corporations are assholes, only that there’s a particular subset of corporations that actually specialize in being assholes–believe me), and well, OK, our government is still absolutely owned by only a handful people hell bent on putting all of us in bread lines . . . but I’m optimistic.

No, seriously.

One of the things I’m most optimistic about is the Internet. Yes, the same place that daily causes us to lose all hope for humanity is also pretty great. It’s great because we’ve largely kept the tentacles of corporations and governments out of it, making it one of the last places where people can actually be free to think, do, and share things, and because some are willing to defend the shit out of that freedom. I think the cheesy way to put it is that it empowers people.

You actually can use the Internet to create new things that connect people, work to solve the world’s problems, or especially–what interests me–sell stuff. Just about anyone can start a little retail business without a whole lot of money, earn customers with hard work, and make something.

Inevitably, this upsets some people.

Back in the world of bicycles, a lot has been made of a letter Specialized’s founder Mike Sinyard recently sent to Specialized dealers. I’d offer a brief synopsis of the letter, but it’s impossible to describe without making it sound petty and stupid, so here it is for you to read yourself, as pasted from BikeRumour:

Dear Specialized Dealer,

Is your store a fitting station for your online competition?

Amazon.com recently launched a free app called Price Check that allows consumers to use brick-and-mortar shops for research, then easily buy many cycling products online right from their mobile device.

Here’s how it works: when in your shop, consumers simply scan a bar code, type in the product name or take a picture to see the product and prices from a variety of online retailers. After ensuring they have the right fit by trying on the product in your store, and talking to your staff, they can buy it from somebody else with the press of a button.

Participating brands include Pearl Izumi, Shimano, Louis Garneau, Giro, Bell, Fizik, Sidi and CatEye.

Who loses in this situation? Certainly not Amazon. And, at least in the short term, not the cycling brands selling through bike shops and Amazon. But what about you?

By buying product from brands that severely undercut you, you are supporting your competition. Why finance your own demise?

Please investigate for yourself by downloading the free Amazon app.

Amazon is clearly interested in the cycling space, and is hiring talent from the bike industry (including from Specialized).

In related news of brands that leverage the IBD while simultaneously undercutting them, Easton-Bell Sports dropped the fruitless suit it filed against Specialized before Interbike. Was this legal maneuvering just carried out for publicity?

Whether the current news is mobile device apps or lawsuits, the underlying issue remains the same: some suppliers support the IBD and some do not. For the sake of your business, examine your suppliers’ strategies and vote with your dollars. The entire bike industry is watching.

Click here to see how Amazon’s Price Check App works in store (Video here)

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Mike Sinyard
President & Founder
Specialized Bicycle Components

Of the many amazing things about this letter, the standout for me has to be the general lack of respect this shows for Specialized’s customers, the dealers. I love that Sinyard writes, “For the sake of your business, examine your suppliers’ strategies and vote with your dollars.” Why thank you, Dad. As a business owner, it never occurred to me to pay any attention to what my suppliers do. Since we’re being so patronizing to IBDs, I’ll go ahead and add: remember to change the toilet paper in your bathrooms and lock your doors at night. Oh, and while you’re examining those supplier strategies, you might want to ask yourself whether being forced toward selling only one supplier’s products is good for your business. Anyone honestly taking Sinyard’s advice would have to agree that his relationship with Specialized is far from ideal. No doubt there are dealers so happy to have Specialized that they’re content to be one brand’s bitch. Good for them. Their owners usually have no idea what a Pivot or a Santa Cruz are, let alone how the bikes they’re selling compare to those brands. But given all the sugary garbage I’m reading about “outstanding customer service” these days, I’d like to point out it’s shops that work to earn customer loyalty instead of just drinking the Specialized Kool-aid that genuinely put the customer first. Why? Because they tend to offer choices. I love that Sinyard’s advice to earning customers and keeping them from shopping online is to limit his dealer’s choices. By all means, drop Easton and Bell products, and sell only Specialized. Just don’t claim you’re still putting the customer first.

Bonus points for the ominous threat he ends with, too: “The entire bike industry is watching.” Sometimes, Dad has to get out the belt. Other times, he just scares the shit out of you without lifting a finger. The thing about monopolies is that they work. For the company with the monopoly, I mean. Not the consumer.

But the Internet has a way of ruining things for those in power.

And that applies to Amazon as well as Specialized. I’ll get into that tomorrow.

The Benefits of Exorcising

 Bikes, Swine  Comments Off on The Benefits of Exorcising
Nov 302011
 

Recently, I was a bit critical of Lululemon’s corporate crusade to find John Galt. Not to be outdone by little old me, the Catholic church, barometer of all right and wrong, has just declared yoga to be Satanic–or, more specifically, former Chief Exorcist for the Vatican, Father Gabriele Amorth, has reiterated the Papal stance on the matter. Though I’d grown up Catholic, I had no idea we even had a “Chief Exorcist” on the team, let alone one whose favorite movie is The Exorcist and who’s apparently seen people “vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron.” Given that Father Amorth declared both Yoga and the Harry Potter franchise Satanic while introducing a new movie about exorcism starring Anthony Hopkins, one has to wonder what other rockstar demon-battling superstars the Vatican has had on board all these years. I’d like to think that the few dollars I put in the collection basket all those years went to the development of some bitchin’ bladed throwing crucifixes!

Speaking of all-powerful nation state institutions, Specialized Bicycles seems to have run afoul of Bell Sports, the crew who owns Giro, Bell, and Easton, after perhaps one too many mandates that a shop not sell Bell products or risk losing Specialized dealership status. In case you missed that, Specialized actually does not permit retailers to sell certain other brands. In fact, it’s extremely common. Trek has similar policies in place as well. As the co-800lb gorillas in the retail bike market, these two companies have been left largely unchallenged for years while dictating to helpless independent bicycle retailers just what their inventory is supposed to be. Understanding how this can happen begins with understanding that, in the bike business, “independent” doesn’t mean “free” so much as “without any representation or protection.” Similar parasitic relationships have gone on in this industry for many years.

The irony here of course is that the red-blooded Assos wearing free market capitalist just now taking delivery of his $18,000 Specialized McLaren Venge is usually completely oblivious to the fact that the small business owner who sold him the bike did so with a gun to his head.

But who cares? It’s good business for a company that can leverage its market share to do so every way possible, and why would Specialized and Trek sit on their hands and wait for randy upstarts to engage them in hand-to-hand sales combat when they can carpet bomb the whole industry with regulations from 30,000-feet and keep the competition off the battle field to begin with? It really is better to avoid competition than to take any chances. Especially when you’re producing a superior product–and who can question the superiority of your product if nobody gets a chance to ride anything else? Fair market competition is obsolete once you’re proven you have a superior product by ensuring there is no fair market competition. All the Chosen Ones need to do now is send out some promotional “Who is John Galt, Baby?” bags to their hamstrung retailers.

Alas, one major problem with maintaining a monopoly these days is something called the Internet, which tends to distribute information to people, and has proven extremely resistant to the kind of control guys like Specialized can exert over independent retailers. Though you can buy visibility with flashier web sites and ads, even the largest company ultimately can’t keep people from finding out about competing products on the internet, and, regardless of what anyone tells you, this is one of the reasons you won’t find retailers offering Trek and Specialized products for sale on-line. As long as there’s a virtual monopoly still in place with the antiquated sales structure of bicycles, the guys on top are going to stay on top, and the status is going to stay plenty quo. Now more than ever, though, the Internet is disrupting that model, and the cycling industry is scrambling to adapt to the shake-up. Consumers are researching and buying their products on-line, and that’s going to be increasingly true in the coming years. There comes a point at which ignoring e-commerce will begin to dismantle companies like Trek and Specialized, and we’re almost there.

Consider that Specialized is now selling some products on their web site, and, regardless of what half-assed “payment sharing” plans such direct e-commerce sales claim to offer local dealers, you have to be a complete idiot not to see moves like this for what they really are: attempts to embrace e-commerce without ceding any control to the front-line retailers representing your brand. The much touted line that independent bike shops are completely safe because nobody will ever purchase an expensive bicycle on the internet is a pacifier, stuck in the mouth of the independent bicycle dealer by that brands that don’t know how to handle sales of their products on-line. Ask Competitive Cyclist whether anyone buys high-end bikes on-line. Or any of the other on-line retailers banking over $20M in yearly sales. Does anyone really think a Competitive Cyclist-built custom bicycle arrives at a guy’s house looking like an unbuilt Ikea desk, and that the company has experienced off-the-charts sales growth over the last handful of years because they keep disappointing customers? I owned a company that sold bicycles on the Internet, and I’ve personally exchanged over 80-emails with a single customer regarding a bike purchase–plus those products don’t put themselves up on your web site and if anything customers have far more questions for which they expect real-time answers, even at 2:00am, so the argument “these web guys” have “no overhead,” is a myth perpetuated by the same guys forcing you to increase your pre-book by 10% next year. The IT spend alone is staggering. These places have extensive overhead; it’s just a different type of overhead, and one that some of your brands don’t want you even sniffing around at. In fact, the industry has been so turned around that many retailers see the Internet only as an enemy, not an opportunity. Long term, that will prove to be tragic. Am I saying the e-comm guys have it all figured out? Not at all. Many of them don’t have a clue, and that’s why it’s important for local dealers to at least understand e-commerce as an opportunity. Local brick and mortar dealers have been fed a load of bullshit about the Internet for years, and when the guys who keep you from selling their products on-line start selling them on-line themselves, it’s time to wake up.

By the time you’re throwing up glass and iron, even Father Amorth won’t be able to save you. Might as well open a yoga studio.

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