Bike Industry - Increasing Speed to Market

[AUbicycles]

This article covers the upcoming (June 2017) The World Cycling Forum in Portugal and keynote speaker Janice Wang who works for the fashion industry and is reiterating the global trend that "changing consumer behaviour does not longer allow for suppliers to operate with lead times as long as 6 to 8 months"

Some key excerpts:

"This Conference puts the cycling industry’s near future into perspective. That future will be dominated by online ordering consumers."

"Increased speed to market brings also big benefits to bike dealers. Increased supply chain flexibility that leads to just-in-time deliveries increases their turnover rates. Bigger bike dealers will demand that. Next to that Janice Wang will also explain that increased speed to market brings down working capital tied up in stocks. An important factor when looking at the expected growth of the e-bike market in Europe."

source: Bike Eu

Comments

Fashion with 'soft goods' does not automatically transfer to hard goods and also more complex products - from the increasing demands in fabricating to R&D and even quality control. Lead time may be able to be shortened however a trend of stores such as Avanti is also to take out 'year' based model names and numbers to avoid have bikes with an effective retail lifespan of 1 year. Most brands tend to have a lifespan of a single bike model that lasts many years - though the artwork can change each year, likewise the specifications and even the carbon fibre layout (when models move from the top to middle and eventually lowest range).

Ridley in Australia (imported by FE Sports) moved to an acquisition of the QLD Paint My Bike so that they can customise paint jobs - so there is still demand based on fashion (trend) and this combination essentially creates a new product segment - customising on a larger scale than previously commonplace.

Media and consumers tend to demand new - and it can be hard for brands to always innovate - often it comes down to sequential upgrades which not necessarily bad. In any case an interesting topic.

Christopher

[Duck!]

Most hard goods in the bike industry have a production life of three to five years, typically with similar development times prior to introduction to the market.