The retailer or brand is making a large investment in a range of models, colors, categories and sizes and hoping that the right person is going to walk in the door within the next twelve months and make a purchase.
What drives the bicycle industry to repeatedly produce more bicycles and e-bikes each year than the market can absorb? Sunk costs. Economies of scale. Ride it out the door. A bike for every price. Model year.
N + 1 is embarrassingly out of touch. It sounds like the Schafer beer commercial from the 1970s that went “Schafer is the one beer to have when you are having more than one.”
The sale of e-bikes increased 11 percent (2020: 34 percent) to 5.1 million units, but growth slowed substantially due to weaker consumer demand. E-bike sales account for 23 percent of total sales in Europe due to the wider use of bicycles for personal transportation. This helped offset the slowing rate of growth in bicycle sales during the year.
The sale of e-bikes increased 42 percent (2020: 138 percent) to 420 thousand units but nevertheless accounted for less than 1 percent of total units sales. Growth in e-bike sales slowed substantially due to weaker consumer demand and a higher base of comparison.
Nevertheless, e-bikes still form less than one third of total industry sales. This means that growth of industry sales will continue to be driven by demand for traditional bicycles.
The European and United States markets combined are the same size as China’s domestic market. This means that economic conditions in the domestic China market have a significant significant effect on the entire industry.
The classic signal of an industry with high inventories is the prevalence of discounted pricing promotions as direct to consumer manufacturers and retailers attempt to turn their inventories into cash. A glance at your Instagram feed will provide plenty of evidence of this.
The number of bicycles and e-bikes sold globally grew 2 percent to 136 million units in 2021 (2020: 19.5 percent). This implies that there is a large overhang of supply of unsold bicycles and e-bikes with manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and retailers and suggests that prices are going to continue to remain weak or trend lower.