Well as a retailer I can't tell you we've set the world on fire with these but we do actually have a few sold. Here's a review we wrote:
http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/...p_Vuka_Crank09.shtml One interesting change that has occured in this industry is that, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I think most of our customers lived about the same lifestyle I do; modest house, used car, small mortagage, middle class wage. My one indulgence has been travel. Now our customers tend to have shifted to a demographic two levels above our own. Lots of discretionary income. No more auto workers, all municipal (firefighters, paramedics), health care professionals, information technology, legal industry. Those are the people buying. The previous rank n' file of customership- gone. The remaining industries at the middle class demographic tend to be the municipal workers (police and fire) and education. Many of them are being careful: A Cervelo P1 instead of a P3, a Felt S32 on sale instead of a new B2.
We're in Detroit, I'm exactly one mile from Ford Motor Company World Headquarters. When you drive by there late at night, the lights are on. People are in there working, thinking, planning,
changing. The "reset" button has been hit on our economy and many people are affected. Here I sit on a Sunday, when my store is closed, working on web updates. Our web traffic on our website is up 17.3% over same time last year, but our sales are only up
2%. We have added value to the customer experience in an effort to leverage sales by installing a new motion capture fit system in our store.
It's a tough economy to be sure and it has been an awful winter- one of the toughest I can remember based on the weather, the election (a bright spot there though) and the economy.
So, what do you do? Come in early on a Sunday and work. Come up with new ideas to provide tangible services to people who may be interested in a bike, adding value to the purchase. Install a new fit system that provides greater value and better fits for the customers you do have. Move forward. Work harder.
I remember when I was a teenager my Mom, who was a single mother and lived through the depression as a child herself, got a new roof on our house. The roofers came out and put the roof on, cleaned up the yard after themselves, collected their tools and left. The new roof looked nice. We had a nice house when I was growing up because my Mom worked hard. After they left my Mom went out in the yard and started going through the bushes. I thought she may be inspecting them to see if the roofers had inadvertantly damaged them.
She was collecting the few remaining nails they had left behind, including the bent ones. She put them in a bag and brought them in the house. The bent ones she sorted out and we sat down and
straightened them. Then she put the nails in a bag and wrote "roofing nails" on the bag and put it oon the bench downstairs. It's probably still there. That was the early 1970's.
Anyway.
One person's tough times are simply another person's opportunity or news headline. The people buying these cranks simply aren't as affected to the degree others are. And they are pretty cool.
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
