Posts by Phil Latz
How’s Business? – October 2020
Welcome to our monthly chat with bike shop owners across Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, stock shortages continued to dominate the dealers’ concerns and comments. This month our follow up question was, “How do you see this new season going and have you made any changes to your usual new model year bike orders?” Steve…
Bike Supply Won’t Fully Recover Before Mid-2021 – At Best!
A lengthy article recently published in the USA trade magazine Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (BRAIN) is a sobering reality check for bicycle dealers around the world. Factories across China and Taiwan are not suffering from shut-downs due to Covid-19. They’re open and running at full capacity. But the problem is that even maximum factory…
Will This Brand Become the Tesla of Bicycles?
Dutch bicycle company VanMoof has just raised a further US$40 million (A$54.4 million) to bring its total capital raising so far to US$73 (A$100 million). In a world full of hundreds of bike brands, how has this relatively small and new player been able to raise, what is by bicycle industry standards, such a vast…
Tour de France 2020 Was Remarkable, Both On and Off the Bike
Against all odds and a backdrop of an exponentially growing second wave of Coronavirus in France, the 2020 Tour de France proved to be one of the most successful and dramatic in living memory. It’s hard enough to keep professional teams sports like football and basketball operating in a ‘bubble’ when they’re confined within stadiums.…
Drive More Customers To Your Shop With Podium
– Sponsored Content – In today’s hyper-digital world, having an online presence is key to a business’s success. In addition to websites, blogs, and social media profiles, having positive online reviews can play a defining role in the success of your shop. In fact, over 90% of consumers seek out and read customer reviews prior…
Identification is a Key Component to Reducing Bike Theft
– Sponsored Content – Bike theft doesn’t just leave the bike owner feeling devastated. Customer concern about potential theft is a major impediment to bike shops selling more bikes and bikes of greater value. A bike lock is a necessary deterrent to opportunistic theft but on its own offers little protection against determined recidivist bike…
Bicycle Shop Owners Should Charge for New Bike Assembly
Erik Tonkin, the owner of Sellwood Cycle Repair in Portland Oregon recently published an opinion article in Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (USA). Here is some of that article: Bike shops need to charge for their new bike assemblies, and they need the support of bike industry manufacturers to make it happen. Building a bike…
Sub 7kg Ebike Sets New Guinness World Record
Mechanical engineer Dennis Freiburg from Germany has set the Guinness World Record for the lightest ever e-bike prototype with a design that weighs just 6.8kg. The ride – named the Freicycle – reportedly took Freiburg almost a year to design and build, serving as part of a project for his doctorate. Unsurprisingly, the Freicycle is…
Mountain Bikes – Will the MTB Sales Boom Continue?
There’s no doubt that mountain bike sales have been going through a boom over recent years. To our industry’s collective disadvantage, unlike the USA and Europe, in Australia we don’t collaborate to produce sales statistics broken down to type of bike. Therefore this article can only be based upon anecdotal evidence from within Australia and…
National Battery Stewardship Scheme Will Lead to Levy on Batteries
On 4th September 2020 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) granted to the Battery Stewardship Council (BSC) the two authorisations necessary for the implementation of an industry-led stewardship scheme that aims to significantly increase the recycling of batteries and end the wasteful and dangerous practice of landfill disposal of batteries. The BSC (www.bsc.org.au) is…