Bianchi buys out SOLA (prev Netti Atom)

[AUbicycles]

Bianchi, the world famous celeste green bicycle brand from Italia who previously had a minority stake in the Sydney based distributer SOLA Sport since 2012, has now bought out the two private co-owners.

SOLA sport (previously Netti Atom) distribute Bianchi, Fox, Netti and Cinettica in Australia

Full Story at Bicycling Trade

[Zippy7]

Interesting. IIRC, SOLA sports are the guys that bought Mike and Chris out of Atelier De Velo.
I think they also bought Le Spit Cyclery not long after that?
I wonder if they will continue to stock Cervelo and Focus bikes alongside the Bianchi, or whether they might turn it into a Bianchi concept store like how Giant have their store down the road.

[Xplora]

Zippy, you just hit the nail on the head... whether we like it or not, premium brands are going offline. A bike isn't an online purchase, and Trek and Spesh have been very sensible pulling their bikes offline. I doubt Bianchi considers themselves a budget brand - Sola is well positioned to help with that.

[AUbicycles]

Zippy, you just hit the nail on the head... whether we like it or not, premium brands are going offline. A bike isn't an online purchase, and Trek and Spesh have been very sensible pulling their bikes offline.

Not sure if this is a parallel universe though I didn't see an 'online sales' connection.

Bianchi have been with Sola for many years and so go to bike shops. Not sure if there are any restrictions to online sales - from bike shops online stores or marketplaces like bike exchange - premium brands will tend to find their way online for sale.

Regarding 'premium brands going offline', I think the trend will be the opposite. Through regular channels, premium brands have been harder to get online however the brands are now moving to understand and manage the market - for example Trek have their configuration and technically in the US have now officially started online sales for supported dealers. These are dealer connected - in the case of Trek, the customer picks up their configured bike from a Trek dealer.

A bike can very well be an online purchase - but there are risks involved and the bike market, right now, is adapting to overcome or compensate for the risks.