So who was the bicycle manufacturer that landfilled excess stock?

I listened in to Mark’s message last night and one of the standout comments was to hear that there was a suggestion in the industry that one of the big players landfilled excess stock, rather than flood the market.

That sounds absolutely insane and I’m curious who it might be.  If it’s a big player, then are we looking at Trek, Spesh or Giant?  High end stuff, or first bike/pottering grade?

Well whoever made that decision (assuming it’s true), I hope they stub their little toe everyday for the rest of their lives as punishment.

No idea who it is but this rumour has been doing the rounds for months now.

Will the full story ever come out?

On a similar subject a well known shoe and boot maker, which starts with Dr. , puts all of its returns into landfill. I was working in a warehouse in Daventry, I asked why the boots were all piled up, they look new. Yes, they were new, but not put back up for sale, just thrown away. Actually put in a secure site, to be disposed of.
Same with Lindt easter bunnies. Pallets of them going for pig food, as they didnt want to discount, as it devalues the brand.

Happened with PDAs when the market for PDAs suddenly tanked – fairly normal.

Maybe like Atari 2600 ET carts they will be recovered decades later 😀

Hahaha! Xora I came here to post the same comment

Was also by done by some of the high-end fashion houses; don’t know if they my still do it.

The excuse offered up was if they discounted prices to clear stock that would ‘devalue the brand’.

Having seen some of the stuff which passes for high fashion it’s difficult to see what there is to devalue.

Should be named and shamed in my opinion. The publicity from sending saleable goods to landfill will devalue your brand quite rapidly. Especially so if the brand in question is publishing a sustainability report and/or wider ESG strategy. Really boils my piss this sort of thing if it is true

one of the big players landfilled excess stock, rather than flood the market.

Not an unusual act when a manufacturer/retailer doesn’t want to sale them and (possibly) devalue their brand.

Really boils my piss this sort of thing if it is true

+1 but it’s quite common in fashion as well. Excess stock / returns etc sent to landfill or burnt. 🙁

I was told by someone in the industry that Speech was cutting up frames and binning them.  They may have just been passing on a rumour, not actual evidence.

The fashion industry is a nightmare. I could go on a six page rant regarding water usage and dumping of stock. Devaluing the brand is a piss poor excuse for landfilling or burning. At least recycle some of the fibres you utter bastards. It should come with mahoosive fines and stripping of any ability to talk about  ESG credentials.

No one in the bike industry will tell you who it was. You don’t shit on your own doorstep.

it shouldn’t be ‘not unusual’ though – it should be illegal.

If it’s true it will come put sooner or later.  There’s always a disgruntled low level employee that wants some revenge.  Let’s face it, the execs won’t be burying the frames themselves.

I was told by someone in the industry that Speech was cutting up frames and binning them.  They may have just been passing on a rumour, not actual evidence.

They have a significant sale on at the moment which they’re publicising so it’d seem unlikely that they’re also binning stuff. 🤷

its hardly a new thing, have you seen the bike dumps in China?

They have a significant sale on at the moment which they’re publicising so it’d seem unlikely that they’re also binning stuff. 🤷

Not necessarily. Sales and destroying stock are both ways of maximising the return on what you hold.

its hardly a new thing, have you seen the bike dumps in China?

A lot of that is the huge number of bikeshare schemes that started up out of nowhere, massive investor input, overwhelming supply. There were loads of them, all in competition but none of them were ever profitable and the whole house of cards collapsed pretty quickly.

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/

 massive investor input, overwhelming supply. There were loads of them, all in competition but none of them were ever profitable and the whole house of cards collapsed pretty quickly.

pretty much describes the post covid bike glut, at least the Chinese are probably recyling all those frames rather than just burying them

Sounds like people making excuses for this shit. If it doesn’t sell, then it’s not devalued, it’s over-valued.

“No one in the bike industry will tell you who it was. You don’t shit on your own doorstep.”

It’s not the dopers omerta : )
Plenty would if they knew for sure and it was off record. I heard some news/ a rumour not long ago about a crazy number of unpaid for bikes that could be landfilled but that’s all it is to me, a rumour. There’s a few bits of info going around that concerning the value or fate of many 10s of 1000s of bikes but what’s more professional, feed the rumour mill or just think, “Yeah maybe..”?

Can’t they just paint them a different colour and sell them as next year’s bikes?

Happens in high fashion all the time, and I know for certain Supreme do it, to keep the hype alive

Bosch claim to be all ” green” and want to look after nature yet when asked what happens to all the different motors they replace under warranty they won’t discuss it 🤔

Presumably nobody in the bike media is going to dig on this, don’t bite the hand that feeds you etc.

Presumably nobody in the bike media is going to dig on this, don’t bite the hand that feeds you etc.

I can’t imagine any outlet which depends on advertising from bike brands would be enthusiastic about potentially alienating a bike advertiser by breaking this.

However it’s definitely something that the mainstream media could (and would) run, and then the specialist media could pick it up without concern – fearlessly emailing the relevant press office for a stock PR statement.

OK, I’m being slightly facetious, but in order to run a story like this you basically need someone with definitive inside knowledge willing to either go on the record, or to talk to you on condition of anonymity – but supply convincing evidence. Preferably two people actually.

That could happen, with all the layoffs of the past year – but I wonder if any brand that did this would let go of people who “knew where the bodies were buried”, so to speak?

I agree with that, but I’m also of the opinion that there isn’t enough people that care about this side of things…we (the consumers) seem to be wanting more carbon and more plastic bike bits…all the top end stuff has a wide range of carbon nice things amongst the alloy stuff. We want the latest fancy things…and the bike industry seems to be quite happy to offer plenty for everyone, but it is such a massive choice market now that there must be loads of companies with surprlus kit that they don’t want to recycle so just dump.
What would be very impressive would be bike companies (actually all companies that make stuff), publishing how they recycle the stuff they don’t sell – yes, will cost the companies more money, but this surely would be a great way to help reduce and reuse (although I suspect carbon either can’t be recycle or is so expensive to do so that it isn’t worth it)…there surely must be ‘stuff’ that can be reclaimed and reused from stock that isn’t getting sold and won’t be sold.
No doubt, this is a very naive look at things and I suspect some bean counter will be able to argue that into oblivion as a ridiculous way of running a business. However, it does seem to sound far more appealing than hearing that some companies could be dumping a load of excess kit into the ground as it isn’t sold.

Devaluing the brand is a piss poor excuse for landfilling or burning.

How do we all think late-stage capitalism works otherwise?

Should be named and shamed in my opinion.

What would that achieve?

The fashion industry is a nightmare. I could go on a six page rant regarding water usage and dumping of stock.

My wife buys designer deadstock from a shop that specialises in this … obviously not all of it goes there, but I am currently wearing trousers she made me from excess Donna Karan fabric.

Today on the radio I heard that there’s huge numbers of excess EVs in China from many local brands that are effectively being dumped because of the downturn there.

Next daft thought – could this excess stock be used to help train people? Excess kit gets supplied to a training centre (or multiple centres) and they do a training course in bike mechanics and builds – the group then get to keep the bike they have built from parts i.e. wheelbuilding, parts fitting, frame checks, etc.
I’m thinking of scheme that helps refuges/immigrants/homeless people to start adding some skills to allow them to find employment to help them (don’t think that has been worded properly, but there are many groups who are there to help give new skills/retrain to various groups). If one of these groups had a tie-in with a cycle location, then perhaps the group could keep a fleet of bikes of varying sizes in place and be able to be used by the group.

This obviously isn’t capitalism, but could help slightly reduce the amount of items being landfilled.

It’s not actually that surprising that it’s happening – four days ago someone put a PSA on here about half price Epics and they are still available – people just don’t seem to have the spare money / appetite to spend thousands on new bikes right now.

Fewer people have the spare cash…without a doubt, but there does seem to be a massive amount of stock getting built. Aware the idea is to sell as much as you can to make as much money as you can, but given how many bike companies making bikes there are, is it time that the manufacturers accept that they won’t sell everything and cut the amount being manufactured by something like 10%…would reduce manufacturing costs (unless they are on the cusp of discount with the volume being made now i.e. build 3000 of these frames and pay $1.50 per frame; build 3500 of these frame and pay $1.00 per frame).

Not just the biking world, but everywhere needs to reduce the amount of stuff being built so there is less excess…again, a naive outlook, but it would help a bit.

It’s not actually that surprising that it’s happening – four days ago someone put a PSA on here about half price Epics and they are still available

How many people:
a) read this forum, specifically that post? and
b) are actually in the market for a new Epic? and
c) are in a position to buy one now?

I’d be surprised if it was more than single figures!

Now how many shops does Specialized supply and how many bikes have they each ordered?
I’d wager that figure is very substantially higher than the first figure so I’m not surprised they still have stock!

I bought a Chisel Comp at very nearly 50% off last year and they had stock of those for quite a while in spite of several folk on here saying they’d bought one and generally publicising the sale prices.

Today on the radio I heard that there’s huge numbers of excess EVs in China from many local brands that are effectively being dumped because of the downturn there.

Doesn’t help that many of the local brands have a trading life measured in months, no dealer/service network and are likely to go bankrupt before your first service.

But yes, many are over producing as well.

*How many people:
a) read this forum, specifically that post? and
b) are actually in the market for a new Epic? and
c) are in a position to buy one now?*

But it’s not only people on this forum that can buy them.

I posted a link to an excellent podcast mini-series by the Escape Collective – most of the ex-Cycling Tips people – about how the industry reacted to the pandemic and where it all went wrong. Spoiler: it’s not quite as simple as ‘pure greed’ gone mad, there are systemic issues with, erm, capitalism and the way the bike industry functions. But anyway, it’s a really interesting listen and explains how big bike brands seem to have got things so blatantly wrong:

https://escapecollective.com/how-did-the-bike-industry-get-into-such-deep-trouble/

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the whole stock to landfill thing may or may not have actually happened. The fact that it’s rumoured to  have been a thing tells you quite a lot, but it seems a bit like something from ‘Things Fall Apart’ and personally I’d want something a little more concrete then people saying stuff ‘off the record’.

Off on a bit of a tangent…

Post Covid a very well known bike manufacturer placed a load (£10m’s) of stock on consignment with a well known and long standing (from mid 80’s) retailer presumably to avoid dumping excess stock. All well and good but the retailer was having a tough time and presumably, concentrated on paying staff, premises overhead etc in order to continue trading. Come the day the music stopped, that big manufacturer was left holding a very big baby. They took over the retailer, rebranded any major competitor activity and continue as the new owners/operators.

So it’s possible without throwing kit on the tip but presumably not all manufacturers want to be retailers…

Back in the early 90s, I remember a car manufacturer binning car head units by the skip load (literally skips full of them). All brand new/unfitted . Because there was a new model coming down the production line and they had a different/newer HU fitted. On site security were tasked with hitting each one with a hammer before it went in