ARE BIKE DISTRIBUTION MODELS CHANGING? “THE INTERNET isn’t going to go away and like mail-order has changed the way many
end-users think about purchasing. The essential difference is that IT technology has cleaned up the flow of information from supplier to retailer to consumer so much that it is possible for a retailer’s website to carry real-time availability information for everything in a distributor’s portfolio. IT has also increased the ease of purchasing, so that it can be done by an end-user from a desk during the working day. In some circumstances, then, the retailer could be seen as acting as a convenient pick-up or despatch point. Even this relationship is changing though, as the reverse process is also possible, with retailers requesting a product to be sent out from a remote location – as Amazon facilitates, for instance. Where retailers can capitalise on this is through the delivery of services not readily available via the internet – servicing, fitting, set-up and the like. I can forsee a time when many retailers will work with a reduced stockholding (and make a reduced margin on that stockholding) but call stock off from not just wholesalers as it is sold as a far more regular pattern of activity, but also act as the servicing arm of some of the larger online vendors of bicycles who are currently seen as retailers but are slowly morphing into companies that spec and source their own ranges and act in some respects as manufacturers. The problem with the former model, of relying on a
wholesaler to hold stock, is that it will make it very hard for the wholesaler to forecast what they will need. Improved communication along the supply line will go some way to help ameliorate these problems. I don’t see the imminent demise of the High Street retailer but I do see an emerging opportunity for them to not just have a new type of relationship with customers, but also a new kind of relationship with the supply side of the industry and with companies that have formerly been regarded as competitors. This is not without risk of course – the question is, which High Street retailers will be willing to take that risk and run a parallel model of supply and customer service alongside the current, traditional, vertically structured supply chain? Maybe it will fall to those who have invested least in large stock quantities but a lot in training and developing a customer base, such as some of the workshop-based “studio businesses” that are becoming more and more common? Graeme King, Velotech
WHY HAS THE GOVERNMENT GIVEN ELECTRIC CARS A £37M SUBSIDY?
“THERE HAS been a low take up of subsidy. Electric cars have high battery replacement costs circa 19k. Their range is comparatively low and take a long time to charge. The government would have been better encouraging people to buy electric bikes. Their range can be up to 100 miles, though an average range is around 30 miles. They are cheaper to run and take a maximum of six hours to charge from flat via a normal mains electric socket. Around 25 per cent of people live within five miles of work yet commute by car, imagine how nice it would be to have cleaner air in our communities. The average cost of an electric bike is around £1,000. For £2,000 you could get a Bosch powered model which is less than half the cost of the amount currently offered for people buying electric cars. My suggestion would be to put the money in developing
electric bikes in the UK plus money off the price of new electric bikes. In Germany 400,000 electric bikes are sold and it would be a great opportunity to develop more manufacturing in the UK.” David Wood, Electrifying Cycles
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“Thank Christ, finally some Paddington parking!” @LDNBikeKitchen approves of the rail station getting 350 cycle parking spaces, via Cyclehoop
“That’s enough cash for a comprehensive system of cycle lanes in every city! + Bicycles don’t leak hydrogen and explode.” @UrbaneCommuter is sceptical about the benefits of an electric car subsidy (see left)
Q: ‘SHOULD BIKES BE VAT FREE?’
“BBC news says doctors want to tackle obesity with a 20 per cent tax on fizzy drinks. How about the other side: make bikes VAT-free?” @KarlOnSea
RESPONSE
TO STORY VIA FACEBOOK
‘DO WE REALLY NEED ANOTHER INQUIRY ABOUT CYCLING?’ “TALK, TALK, Parliamentary debate talk,
cycle summits and more talk. The introduction of an APPCG with as much bite as my 95yr old granny, meeting after meeting.....Jump to 2013 and after everything that happened in 2012 do we need another inquiry to find out ‘Why more people don’t cycle’?” Cyclists 4 Change
“I don’t think cutting bike cost by zero VAT is anywhere near as important as infrastructure spending.” @dave42w
“Every little helps though and makes more sense than just taxing bad crap” @gazza_d