Magura Australia Launches Fully Factory Owned Subsidiary
Magura was established in Germany in 1893. They are a diversified global company, but within the bicycle industry are best known for their high end hydraulic brake systems.
In Australia they were previously distributed and serviced by Eurocycles, but this company, owned by Rick Krassoi, has been steadily extracting itself from the bicycle industry over recent years, with Magura being the final product to go.
On 21st September 2020 Magura Australia announced to its bicycle trade customers that it was commencing trading. Simultaneously they also launched a B2B webstore.
Magura Australia will still be operating from the same Lane Cove, NSW premises as previously and with the same manager, Andrew Baldyga. Rick Krassoi is also staying involved at a far more ‘hands off’ level, as the sole Australian based director of the new company.
We visited Magura Australia one day after their announcement went to dealers and the phone was running hot with enquiries about changing account settings and other questions.
Andrew took a few minutes out from attending to these calls to answer our questions.
“I’ve been doing Magura product in Australia for about three years now,” Andrew said. “Prior to that I was working in bike shops in the United States. That’s where I learned about Magura products. I’d been using them for a while through the OE (original equipment) options that were coming through on the bikes that we sold.”
Andrew who is an American, was previously based in Chicago where he worked at Johnny Sprockets and prior to that at Village Cycle Centre, which is the USA’s largest store, where he was the customer liaison manager for the workshop.
“Magura is such a solid product. Different to other brakes on the market in the fact that it’s a one piece calliper,” he continued. “Going forward with the change to Magura Australia, we’ve made the B2B webstore a lot more user friendly in terms of searching for products by SKU, common name or through broad categories.
“Because we’re backed by the factory now our inventory levels are two to three times higher than what they were previously. So we’ll have quicker dispatch times.
“Our service email is now monitored not just by myself but people back at the factory (in Taiwan). This year and next year we have a lot more OE’s on board, so a lot of shops that haven’t dealt with Magura in the past are going to be seeing it coming into their shops.
“It’s still a smaller brand in terms of sales. We definitely have more shops calling us for consumables such as brake pads and rotors to keep their customers’ bikes running.
“We’ve got 500 to 600 bike shops on our database, which we carried over from the previous distributor.”
Magura has seen a surge in demand since the coronavirus hit. “The factory is producing at 100%, if not more, Andrew said. “We’re working on getting supply figured out and focusing upon getting products to our customers.”
Magura stopped producing suspension components two to three years ago. They’re solely focused upon rim and disc brakes.
“We’re experiencing a large growth at the moment for both aftermarket and OE sales.”
To contact Magura Australia visit www.magura.com.au or call 1300 300 607.