02/01/2018 - Direct Sales
Direct Sales
A message from our main man, Cy Turner...
When I started Cotic in 2003, the main thing that enabled me to do so was that - apart from the Soul being rad and people wanting to buy it - I could sell them mail order, direct to customer via a website. It meant I could keep doing my day job, answer customer emails in the evening, and the website could take orders day and night. So, we have always sold direct. And I enjoy that; I love the direct contact and connection we get with customers doing it this way. As time went on and our reputation grew, shops approached us to become dealers. This was great, and very flattering.
Testing the Hemlock Prototype in Luchon with AQR Holidays in 2006
Over the last couple of years we have focused really hard on improving how we offer our products - better marketing, bigger demo fleet, Sam out on the road, more bike options, more customer events like the Spring Party, the showroom and Factory Collection at Calver, the Go Custom bike build programme. More and more people are coming to us directly, and at the same time, it's getting harder to support the dealers the way they need to be as we move so quickly with new product offerings. Also our big box competition are offering dealers higher margins and credit terms which we simply cannot match, and stock in offers which in some cases crowd us completely out of some showrooms.
We have always been a lean, low margin business. Our products are much more costly to produce than a lot of products they're compared to - Reynolds 853 is an amazing material, but is much more expensive than aluminium or cromoly, and harder to work too. This high cost relative to other options means our Droplink bikes, for example, cost nearly twice as much to manufacture compared to the aluminium competition. The business model allowed us to keep margins low and pricing competitive despite our small size, and the dealer margin took a good chunk of that. It averaged out because we kept selling direct so overall we were still doing well. Having no room to improve the dealer margins and terms without a price increase, whilst at the same time not having the capacity to improve the support, I felt that the time was right for us to call time on the dealers and do it all ourselves. Do one thing well, as a wise man once said.
So what does this mean for the future? Well for start, no mega price cuts like certain other brands who have gone direct to customer recently. As I explained above, this move is about preserving current pricing, and concentrating on doing the best we can for our customers. So that Rocket Gold Eagle build you saw yesterday at £3699 is still £3699 today. Shipping is still included in the for the UK and it will arrive at your door in our award winning bike box, ably demonstrated here by Hannah.
We will obviously have offers and promotions on from time to time, like the Cane Creek shock offer we ran in November, but broadly the pricing remains the same.
For our overseas customers the biggest change is that from today Eaven Cycles in Germany is no longer our distributor, and we are shipping frames and bikes directly from the UK. Carsten from Eaven is still with us though - he is now a sales agent for us in Germany and Austria. Although you will now place your order via www.cotic.co.uk, you can reach him on carsten@cotic.co.uk if you want to have your customer support in country, or you feel your English isn't up to trying to contact us. We're sorry our German isn't any better! In France, Julien Gelot at Cyen Bicycle is also still with us, again as an agent, but he is staying on contact@cyen-bicycles.com. Julien is also offering a full custom build service as well, so get in touch with him if you're in France and you don't see anything on our own website that completely fits your perfect bike spec. If you are in any country other than Germany or France, we can send you a Cotic: Direct to the World from the Peak District! Drop us an email if you want to talk options. Translation software is amazing so even if English isn't your first language, get in touch and we'll do the best we can. We would love to hear from you.
If you have bought your Cotic from a dealer, fear not! We have parted on good terms with them and I'm sure they will be happy to service and support you and your bike just as they always have. If you have questions or customer service queries, then just get in touch with us. We're happy to help, and it would be great to hear from you. Call us on 07970 853531 or email info@cotic.co.uk.
So that's that. Cotic coming at you direct only in 2018. Exciting times.