Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club

Quoting today's AFR:

Discount retailer Super Cheap Auto Group hopes to tap into the growth of Australia's $1 billion bicycle and accessories market, launching a retail chain backed by its $6 million acquisition of Melbourne's Goldcross Cycles.

They are planning 50 shops all up.

Seems similar to what Halfords does in Britain, so I don't think they'll be selling Colnago or Ellsworth.

Flight Centre, of all people, announced something similar last week.

Is this the, ahem, Bunningsisation of local cycle retail?

Yep, the start of Bunnings for bikes.

I wonder if the Bunningsisation of Bikes is good for local bike stores or bad?

Bad.

If you know what you want, and don't need advice, you are probably already doing your bike shopping online, not at the LBS, so they are already under pressure, but this could potentially attack the customer base who likes to deal face to face, and is prepared to pay a bit more for service, advice, and the ongoing care of their bike...

If they are going to drive down the retail price mark-up of bike gears, then it may have some value.

It's the internet that is putting that pressure on.

Super Cheap Auto will almost certainly be running the predatory model à la Bunnings. I.e. dropping prices locally until the competitor is driven out of business, then creeping up prices... Also putting the squeeze on manufactures. This doesn't mean putting the squeeze on Campy or Shimano, but sourcing as much stuff as possible from the cheapest Taiwanese producer at high volumes.

Expect to see alot of bikes being sold really cheaply with generic parts all over them. Don't expect much from any well-known brands, who will probably choose to leave the realtively small Australian market, than to supply at next to no margin.

If one does a spin around the likes of Lotus Supermarket in Thailand you'll see a quality of bikes on sale there that makes the standard Huffy we're used to here in Australia look good. Perhaps this is the sort of bikes they're planning on selling -

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?titl ... 1214718128

BTW On my first tour of Laos I met a 2 Euro blokes who bought a couple of croco's in Bangkok & had so far done 1000km from there into Laos. Good on them, however I rode off very quickly before they mugged me for my Malvern Star MTB I was riding at the time...

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?titl ... 1214718128

I've got to have one

What a great bike!