Velo Project - Cycle Industry Report

[mickle]

Allegra Strategies recently published the first of a series of reports into the UK cycle industry. Until now their area of expertise has been coffee shops. They claim to have 'written the bible' on the UK coffee shop industry and it was one of their CEO's observations that bicycle retail in the UK was similar to the position that coffee retail was ten years ago that prompted them to get into it. He said to one of the guys in the office; 'You ride a bike don't you? ... Great. Let's do bike shops then'.

It's of particular value I think that they come from outside of the industry as they appear to have approached it with no pre-conceived notions. They've put a few noses out of joint too. One cycle industry big-wig is said to be publicly denouncing their findings and accusing them of fabricating the findings because they didn't tally with his claims of market share.

Anyway, some interesting facts - Evans' and Chain Reaction's growth for example is simply astounding.

I knew they didn't need my money.

http://www.cyclorama.net/blog/cycling-news/knowledge-is-power/

 

[summerdays]

Any idea what upset the industry big-wigs ... that all seems fairly positive to me with regards the future of cycling in the UK.

 

[mickle]

Industry big-wig claimed that his bicycle business had (x)% market share, the report suggested that it was substantially less than (x).

 

[dellzeqq]

it is positive, but there's nothing on the regional variations - variations that have contributed to Evans' success - and not, apparently, taken too much heed of the impact of policy, which I would suggest is critical.

 

[yello]

Stunned I am... about Chain Reaction! I would have thought Wiggle were bigger/had greater turnover but I didn't think either of them would be "the second largest specialist retailer".I thought that honour would go to Evans.