David Ajala, managing director of the auto and cycle division at Super Retail Group, parent company to bike retail chain Goldcross Cycles, says issues such as the low-value importation threshold were of less concern to Goldcross than being able to negotiate good deals with their main overseas suppliers.
“We have to make sure trade partners are giving us globally competitive cost prices, as some are selling at a premium price into Australia because Australian consumers have, in the past, been willing to pay higher prices over the years,” Ajala says.
Ajala says Super Retail Group has been putting a lot of effort into upgrading Goldcross’ online offerings. This has been done while sales in its 19 bricks and mortar stores – 11 in Victoria and eight in Queensland – have plateaued over the past couple of years.
Goldcross pitches its products to a far broader base of shoppers – families – than a niche, boutique retailer like Cyclespeed. But, just like Cyclespeed, Ajala says the company has noticed the rise of the frugal, maintenance-minded customer who will spend money on maintenance rather than buy a new one.
He says bicycle sales have been challenging across most styles – and there appears to have also been a drop in the number of children and youths riding bikes.
“Trade has been pretty flat over the last two years. I think a lot of people who might have been thinking about buying a new bike have instead been maintaining their bikes.
“We’ve got workshops with specialist mechanics in every store and they have been kept very busy.”
The apparent drop in the number of children riding is worrying, he says.
“I think a lot of this is around the question of safety. Parents might not think it’s that safe for kids to ride to school or ride around on the streets like we might have when, for example, I was young.
“This might be an issue for the future of the industry as both the kids’ bike imports and the anecdotal evidence we are seeing is that kids are spending more time doing things that are less active, like spending time on the internet or playing computer games.”
But Ajala says the company was optimistic that its online offering, coupled with a “test and trial” of an expansion of the Goldcross brand by placing a “store within a store” into Super Retail Group’s Amart stores, would see Goldcross prosper and grow into a nationwide retail chain.
While seeing online as a vital component of a multichannel retail approach, he believed that when it came to buying a bike, most shoppers still “want to sit on a bike” before making a purchase.
It’s a similar story to Cyclespeed’s triathlete customers, who might do their research on the internet but still like to have a chinwag to Jones about what they want to modify on their bikes bought in-store. Along with services, most shoppers still value the opportunity afforded in a retail setting to “try and buy”.
Bradshaw, Jones and Ajala all agreed that while it was nice to have a sporting hero such as Evans raise the profile of cycling a little, ultimately, the bump factor retailers got from his win last year dissipated fairly quickly.
“There was definitely a Cadel factor in effect last year. You could definitely see a bump in sales after Cadel’s win and it wasn’t just the weekend guys coming and wanting to buy a $20,000 copy of Cadel’s bike,” Bradshaw says.
“There were parents coming in with kids inspired by Cadel wanting to buy bikes for themselves and the kids. It certainly helped retailers.”
Unfortunately, without back-to-back Tour wins to his name, the Evans factor won’t be in effect this year, so bike retailers will need to hope that a helping boost to sales will come from elsewhere.
