“We’re trying to influence and encourage green practices. In our offices we’re trying to go paperless and adopt green methods and it is costing us around 67p or so per bicycle, so it’s not for our monetary benefit. “But it’s not about Dahon,” Ecclestone
stresses. “We’re just the catalyst.” Talking of catalysts, something appears to
have lit the blue touchpaper for Dahon, as Eccleston explains: “We’ve had explosive growth in China – it’s been phenomenal. There are 1,100 dedicated Dahon shops and the business is growing there too.” The brand is forging into new markets too, with deals in place that take it into Greece, Italy, Australia, India and Eastern Europe territories.
2013 FOLDERS For 2013, Dahon has 22 bikes in its range, including six new models and nine updates. There is a range of accessories too, notably under the brand name Dr Hon, targeted at folding bicycles in general. And then there’s the no small deal of the 30th anniversary – celebrated with limited edition bicycles, the Dr Hon accessory launch and a number of other initiatives like the ‘Me and My Dahon’ competition, where Dahon fans send in their snaps from yester-year. On a corporate level, Dahon is boosting its
Dahon is 30 years strong
Dahon has got plenty to say about where it has been and where it’s going. Global sales and marketing director Eddie Ecclestone tells all to Jonathon Harker…
DAHON HAS had what you could conservatively call an interesting year or so. From an acrimonious company split that is on going and has resulted in the launch of a rival brand, to a new distributor deal or two in the UK, Dahon has never been less than boring in the last 24 months. But the folding brand has been around for a
while – 30 years in fact – and Dahon is getting on with re-establishing itself. Now more than a year into its successful distribution deal with Raleigh in the UK and with a brand new factory facility in Europe, Dahon is getting on with the business of building bicycles.
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And that’s not all. At Eurobike, where BikeBiz caught up with global sales and marketing director Eddie Eccleston, Dahon launched a ‘Green Award’ – a prize fund of €10,000 Euros for an individual, group, company or organisation (or even city) that has ‘demonstrated significant efforts towards green mobility’. Dahon is looking for more companies to join in and add to the pot. Post-press conference, BikeBiz caught up with Ecclestone and asked him about that new Green Award. “It is close to our heart,” he explains. “We are a company that started with green values, well ahead of most people,” Ecclestone tells BikeBiz.
“We’re a
company that started out with green values.” Eddie Ecclestone, Dahon
management team at HQ and Ecclestone himself has joined the board of directors (see page 59). The European team has been strengthened too, which brings us to another huge change at Dahon in the preceeding months – the setting up of a new service centre and manufacturing plant in Europe. While Raleigh will deal with afterservice
locally for UK bike dealers, the new Holland-set service centre will back up the distributor and others on the continent. Perhaps even more significant has been the new production plant at Bulgaria. Ecclestone reveals: “If you ask Raleigh about the quality of the bikes they’ve been receiving from Bulgaria they’d be very positive indeed. There’s been a lot of change and progression, but Bulgaria is an inexpensive location based near to a lot of our key markets. It’s only seven days from Bulgaria to the UK. And we’re stacking bikes up there so we’re holding stock for distributors, all ready to go.” So, undeniably a busy two years for Dahon,
but where does it see itself in five years? There will continue to be a drive towards greener practice and for sure there will be new technology and innovation, but there will also be a back to basic approach. “We’ll be trying to get back to our core
values,” Ecclestone concludes. And with those core values of encouraging the use of environmentally sustainable forms of transport, that seems like a healthy target. www.dahon.com; Raleigh: 01773 532600