Collaboration – The Best of Both Worlds
The economy has shaken up many businesses and the bicycle industry is no exception. For me, I have seen the term "high end" become a dirty word and many of my competitors have either gone out of business or have switched to selling much less expensive stock bikes to keep the doors open. I chose to keep KGS Bikes focused on what we do that is unique, special and different from the rest of the industry. This is a better way to design custom bicycles by finding an optimum position first and then designing the frame around that position. What I have not been able to do is to use the positioning techniques I discovered to create a traditional retail bike shop. What I have found, however, is that some traditional bike shops do want to offer a better custom bike to their customers. I am happy to announce the beginning of KGS Bikes' Custom Frame Outsource Program.
The logic is simple. We have a great atmosphere for working one-on-one with clients to find the perfect position. Bike shops have a great atmosphere for retail and people like to go there to socialize as well as to get the products they need for the sport on a day to day basis. The disconnect is, KGS Bikes needs more traffic without disturbing the clients that are here to avoid the crowd while getting a positioning.
We are teaming with one bike shop in San Antonio to solve this problem for both stores. Cycle Logic has been in business for 17 years and has a long standing relationship with customers. They are now experts in the custom bike business thanks to KGS Bikes. Their customers will be able to be positioned by us and we can build their frame which can then be built and delivered to Cycle Logic. This solves both problems simultaneously and Cycle Logic has the full line of custom frames to offer their customers that we sell. We don't have to ramp up traditional retail either, which would destroy our specialized environment.
I plan on expanding this concept in other towns, working with one key bike shop who embraces custom bikes but has not had much success in selling them. The processes are entirely different and almost no bikes shops have done well at both because of this. The bike shop wins because the customer really wins. For remote cities, I will place a KGS team member in their store, similar to how Martha Stewart places her brand in K Mart, Home Depot and other businesses. The BalancePoint™ positioning system is so dynamic, I want to be able to offer the same level of expertise to other shops as I can provide myself.
I am thrilled to be able to offer more people the advantages of our expertise and the fine folks at Cycle Logic are excited to be the first to partner with us. They are more efficient in building bikes than I am and have a full repair department to support much more volume than I can. I am still able to sell to my smaller group of clients without impacting their sales volume and I can do what I do best; continue to find ways to improve the comfort and efficiency of riding a bicycle.
Hats off to Allen Hodapp at Cycle Logic for finding a new and better way to serve their customers! You will hear more about KGS Bikes teaming with bike shops in other cities soon.