In the gran scheme of things, I can’t for the sake of it understand what use does an importer have. From my experience some of them are just plain bad (bertin for example), others are just here to take the piss pricewise (Tribe being an obvious answer) and each time you call them they redirect you towards a LBS. Which is great, expect for the part when most ( I am very tempted to say all) of them are perectly fine with to ask the LBS to cut down their margins (so the importers can keep driving a massive SUV) in order to compete with online prices. So discuss, would the market be better off without the imorters?

So where would the small LBS buy there stock from? Taiwan direct?

Ask the people who’ve had issues with their Canyons or Cubes (Cube at least have a Uk reps).
Mavic used to be a nightmare to deal with before they got a uk service centre.Distributors owned by the parent company seem to work quite well (like CSG and Mavic).

Rich they could order it from the brand direclty. At the beginning hope was order directly. And all was just perfect.

Far more economical to ship larger volumes in a container months in advance than small volumes air freighted quickly which is what individual LBSs would need otherwise.

The importers have a larger capital outlay and therefore risks in doing this. Plus they’ll deal with customs issues etc and hold ups (which happen)

An individual LBS doesn’t have a clue about a lot of what bits he will/won’t need the following week. but an importer with a network of LBSs can guestimate he’ll need x of these and y of these this quarter.

You cut them out and some costs/delays else where would increase (shipping), perhaps not quite so much but there are other down sides too. They get deals small guys can’t get without volume.

The other sensible option would be for LBS’s to operate as a cooperative; but who’d stump up the £ upfront? storage? distribution? A lot of LBSs don’t have ££££ and run on credit, who’d run it and how would they get paid for their time premises etc. ahhh yes opp’s I’ve just created and importer all be it one which perhaps isn’t for profit in itself but pretty much and importer.

They can be cut out but there are down sides. Look at Alpkit a great example, great kit at great prices (I like ’em a lot) but often limited on stock and long waits. pluses and minuses not sure an LBS could do the Alpkit thing at all tbh Alpkit have also struggled with big suppliers i remember reading somewhere that they couldn’t buy some Pertex stuff direct (Quantum?) ‘cos they weren’t big enough…..

it can work online with fairly good volumes (AlpKit, On-One) but an LBS nah!

A necessary evil if you ask me.

[edit]also the big boys don’t want to deal with the little fella’s

they want fewer big order than many small one’s else their admin costs also increase which in turn get passed on somewhere[/edit]

I’d basically written the same response as 29erKeith and posted, before realizing I wasn’t logged in. I’m glad to see someone else has common sense.

It’s a nice idea, having LBSs dealing directly with manufacturers, but it’s just not going to happen.
Using Hope as an example: UK LBSs deal direct with them, as they have a UK sales office. However, bike shops all over the rest of the world don’t order direct. It would simply cost too much to do, and take up too much of everyone’s time. Imagine someone in Australia has a warranty issue with a set of hopes- they’re not gonna send them back to Lancashire for servicing, are they?

@Juan- the reason distributors send you to your LBS is because they simply don’t have time to deal direct with the public. With thousands of bike shops up and down the country, they’ve got enough on their plate as it is!

This is a subject which could be discussed til the cows come home, but basically it’s a stupid idea.

pinetre emy lbs from france use to deal with hope direct..

Me – Hello Mr/Mrs supplier, I would like to order £k worth of your wonderfull goods, what is your best price, listen to giggles on the other end of the phone! 😯

Importer – I want to order £m worth of goods off you, I want % discount, lots of hand rubbing heard on the other end of the phone.

Hope are great, again I like ’em and have some of their kit and am always impressed with their customer service

but they are not “one of the big boys” by a long way
good luck to them an maybe one day they will be but lets see if/when it happen if they still operate on the same model as they do now when they’re that size

btw I work in the shipping industry in a company(s) with links to sea, road, rail, air, customs and importers etc

I also put money on the fact that Hope have different prices for you and me and an LBS and the likes of CRC etc

juan, if importers are so rubbish and unneccessary, why do they exist?

Go figure.

You also need to consider that to take that stage out the manufacturer needs the infrastrucure of a specialist importer, adding to the cost of the business.

This cost base is probably better deployed as a seperate company – hence the distributor exists.

Consider also the guys like Madison. They deal with ironing out pricing fluctuations and currency values. Marketing and sponsorship in their local market. Warranty and returns departments that speak English and not Japanese (Shimano for example).

Ultimately, making something and selling it to a few people is a lot easier and cheaper than selling to millions of people. If anything, distributors probably help keep the cost down and the relative level of service up.

Canyon et al are a different kettle of fish. They are established to have the function they have. They are that model as a business as it their strategy. Bear in mind they are selling a bike only really. The vast majority of distributors deal with thousands of products, all from different countries with different requirements.

Personally – i like the situation as it is. I make one or 2 orders to one or 2 people for the stuff we sell day to day. Not 13 or 14. If i had to then the cost of my business would go up too and then we are back in a worse position.

why do they exist

Legacy?
I mean I am super loyal to my LBS, I won’t shop anywhere else. Howevver some of the sutff I want is a PITA to get, and they all come from the two same importers (who together owns: shimano, pro, bell, giro, pearl izumi, fox, formula*, race face, 661, selle italia, michelin, easton, urge, SDG, royal racing, crankbrother, E-13 and EVOC).
There is indeed some very nice alternatives. And I am lucky to be a fucntion over form people.
However I can’t help but think of what would happen the day I’ll really need something from on of these two importers.

So marc you never had a problem with madison? They never bothered you about getting your price as close at the web ones? Interesting.

As above they do a lot with the actual importing, supporting, marketing, demo etc.

You can have problems with anyone like in any walk of life. Taking a distributor out of a supply chain just moves the problem to another link.

Re pricing – regardless of an importer being in the chain or not the straight to manufacturer route wouldn’t stop rrp’s being set. In many cases it may enforce them more. I am not sure what you are meaning?

Re pricing – regardless of an importer being in the chain or not the straight to manufacturer route wouldn’t stop rrp’s being set. In many cases it may enforce them more. I am not sure what you are meaning?

Generally people mean it’s so much cheaper in Germany for reasons they don’t care about. Unfortunately people place no value in local warranty support etc when they don’t need it. The global market means you can look at stuff in the UK then order from Taiwan, until the local shot disappears.

I think juan is talking about how merlin/crc/etc can often sell stuff online cheaper than your LBS can buy it at “trade” from Madison.

With the direct to market model you’d actually find the cost of many things go up.

If every manufacturer has to provide their own sales reps and office in every country the costs are a lot higher than having a distributor that does this for several brands.

It would be the end of smaller companies – they simply wouldn’t be able to get their product to market.

Ok, with the internet there’s no need to have a sales rep you could argue. But who in their right mind would buy a product that has to be shipped half way round the word for a warranty claim and/or servicing?

Also it centralises it for the LBS. They can have an account with Madison (or whoever) and put in an order with them for stuff from (say) 20 companies rather than have a separate account with each of those companies. Also they can be reasonably sure they’ll get it all in fairly shirt order, rather than 1 month for company A’s stuff, 2 weeks for company B’s stuff, etc etc.

I’m sure it’s not perfect, but what is?

Well teh way I see it. If you want stuff from the importer, you have to place order in october for stuff that would be delivered in march. You pay for the postage from the importer to the shop and I would bet that the price of the postage from the factory to the importer’s is factor in the price of goods. So basically you could do the same with the producer. Prices will be defined at the start of the season and kept through the year (like it’s already the case with hope).

Prices will be defined at the start of the season and kept through the year (like it’s already the case with hope).

That’s not the case at all, and Hope is a really poor example because a) they’re small scale and b) they control a lot more of their costs than most companies (ie production).

you have to place order in october for stuff that would be delivered in march

Whereas ordering from Taiwan would be far quicker? Some bikes, or new items can take a long time, but most ‘core’ stock is available within a few days.

If a bike comes in which needs (for example) a Shimano axle you can order it online from Madison, free postage and it’ll turn up the next day. If you had to phone Japan you’d have to wait until you had a colossal order, just to offset the postage charge, it’d take ages too. They you’ve got the fact that Shimano need someone who speaks every single language, to deal with all the enquiries.

What about small companies (like Hope), should they employ French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Swahili, Mandarin, Thai and Arabic speakers, so they can send seals thousands of miles around the world?

It works in some capacities, but the original question is nothing short of stupid.

Dosnt hope have their own sales organisation in France (well one guy and a van)?

Anyway, mabye the problem is not the use of distributors per se, but the way French distributors operate. From what people have told me, Race Company or Tribe dont seem that good and they control quite a few brands between them.

Race Co are ok. Tribe are jsut rubbish. Njee example is just not valid. Order somethign from bertin (shimano france) and you’ll have to pay postage, plus if madison/bertin don’t have the axle you will wait ages.

As for language, why not speak english full stop. It seems to be already accepted in science, why not in trading?
I am impressed how most of the people on here seems to be eager to get rid on LBS, but still not of importers.

As for language, why not speak english full stop.

Are you really just a massive troll?

As for language, why not speak english full stop

That will really work in France 😆

It’s pretty simple. you can ship a big box of stuff to france for cheaper then lots of little boxes, for customs clearance, packaging, handling etc. etc.
an LBS can choose to hold lots of stock if it wants to, in which case when you roll down there they have everything they need and can hand it over straight away. the idea with an importer, is that they deal with lots of lbs, can hold stock because they play the odds that 100 lbs they deal with may want 10 of ‘x widget’ and 5 of ‘y widget’, so when a demand is placed on them they’re able to respond quickly and aren’t in a position where they’re holding tons of stock. that system works for the customer who loves to support the lbs, the manufacturer who get’s to sell more stuff because it’s easily available, and for the distributor who basically makes a living from shipping stuff about efficiently. it smooths the flow of demand from the manufacturer and to the lbs.

the problem comes when you have a distributor who won’t hold stock or won’t supply a reasonable minimum order volume to an lbs or end-user. which for the manufacturer AND the lbs/end-user is an undesirable situation, but there may be a million reasons why that situation may be perpetuated to the detriment of either ends of the supply chain, but obviously there are benefits for the distro of no stock overheads and easier cash-flow.

love the ‘language of business should be english’ thing though. that’s made my day! 😀

That will really work in France

Much better than the other way around I assume.