InsideOutdoor | SUMMER 2022 24 In-Season D2C boom could be good news for non-bike shops tween the mass merchant/entry-level segment at the wide bottom of the pyramid (say $1,000 and below) and the specialty store price points at the much skinnier top (say $3,500 and above). “D2C brands like Rad Power or Aventon are dominating at the $1,500 price point,” said Ed Benjamin, eCycleElectric founder, in an interview with Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. And those brands increasingly are creeping into price points that sit at the lower end of independent bike shops’ e-bike offerings. Some of the success of D2C sales can be attributed to shoppers becoming more-savvy about buying direct, largely due to the pandemic. “The rise of sophisticated B2C brands selling at or near what has traditionally been bike shop price territory is a signal that more Americans are ready to make a quality e-bike purchase without benefit of a test ride, assembly or after-sale service from the supplier,” wrote Rick Vosper, a BRAIN columnist and head of Rick Vosper Marketing Services. But Benjamin believes D2C e-bike brands also are getting better at taking care of their customers. “Their service is getting better, and so are the products they offer in terms of service and The recent Eurobike event, held live in July in Frankfurt Germany, all but confirmed things: e-bikes are still booming and remain an opportunity. “This year you’d have been forgiven for thinking Eurobike was an e-bike show,” reported Will Jones for Cyclingnews. Indeed, after the initial burst of global e-bike sales during the past few years, projections for annual growth rates in the coming years range from around 9 percent to 12 percent, with the market expected to reach as much as $118 billion by the end of the decade. And according to data from eCycleElectric, which tracks imports of e-bikes, the direct-to-consumer (D2C) channel has been grabbing some serious market share and at a rather thick part of the sales pyramid. Look somewhere beE-bikes Change the Channels By Martin Vilaboy Image courtesy of Aventon
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