Spooky Bikes

[nahtnoj]

Saw something on FB regarding dealer packets? Wanna get into that a bit?

[suspectdevice]

Saw something on FB regarding dealer packets? Wanna get into that a bit?

Another long reply-

In an effort to keep Skeletors in constant production and nearly as ubiquitous as Cannondale CAAD bikes as well as making some fucking money we're trying to build a better dealerbase with clearer, more consistent information, pricing, availability and point-of-purchase materials as well as more "hard" traditional media based marketing.

We've never bought a magazine ad. We've never had a review in a domestic magazine. I've never sent out a press release. All of our marketing and promotions has been based on word of mouth, race results and a LOT of social media. There is vast un-tapped market potential waiting out there and with more sales and production capacity we might be able to turn new cats onto our jive.

Over the last few years we've had some great relationships with a dozen or so shops. Because(and I'd like to think that Spooky and Gaulzetti are a big part of it) knowledgeable consumers have started to embrace aluminum again it is becoming more and more attractive to have a well-priced, kickass USA made high-end frame to sell to customers who don't want a big 3 bike. We have dozens(!) of bikes in NYC for example at the moment and not a single dealer. That has to change! Our production mtb frames are priced competitively with a brand like Niner.

In the MTB market at this time there is a dearth of "alternative" domestically based brands that offer a full-range of differentiated bikes that can be positioned against the major brands. Our flexible fabrication abilities, excellent product and multiple vendors and reasonable pricing make us a viable high-end brand for a shop that can't afford or doesn't want to be committed to a Trek or Specialized. We already offer superlative production road frames. With only the smallest bit of dealer support we can deliver MTB and CX products to dealers that are just as well priced and kickass as the Skeletors.

I've become very good friends with the people that run the local Trek/Niner dealer and we've started working on merchandising etc... to make the bikes work well on the floor, shit like that, one sheets, PRO jazz goes a long way on the floor.

Knowing that there is a little bit better organization over here I'm hoping that the dealer program will work smoothly and will integrate well into our current production plans and long-term brand objectives.
In my ideal world we'd build a fairly healthy dealer base and then "sell" our wholesale sales channels to a distributor.

To build the FS bikes that I need to be able to race DH and Mega/Enduro races we need to be able to pre-commit a few dozen frames before we run them.
Building value as a production brand and then selling-off the distribution of production bikes wholesale to a distributor will help to significantly improve my quality of life- hopefully it will give me more time to ride and develop bikes and focus on building custom bikes with FTW..
Because Frank is Frank and he's been building bikes for 30 years it takes about 10 man hours to fabricate a relatively complicated custom tig frame and a little less time for something straightforward. It would be really fun to capitalize on that capacity.

I can't manage, nor do I care to manage the logistics of shipping more than 2 frames a week right now and I'm already paying beer to a local mechanic to assemble completes with my current workload and the que is already firmly at 2 months and growing(unless someone is willing to pay a premium).

Trying to make a little more time to work on the custom/small production/ race shop end of the business is important, especially because it's more fun than worrying about selling production bikes all day.

I'm behind on bringing bikes to paint/facing/chasing/boxxing/shipping so I need to make sure I can nip that in the bud asap. We first started offering custom bikes about three weeks before NAHBS. It's nice to see that the demand for custom bikes exists already.
Before I lose my shit trying to manage what is effectively becoming two different bike companies(and I can barely manage one right now) I want to make sure that we have more feet on the ground trying to sell our bikes than just me and my keyboard.

One thing that I'd really like the time to do would be design custom paint and graphics for the made-to-measure bikes and have a skilled painter spray them fancy-like. I like graphic design and I'm not half bad at it so it'd be damn fun to get paid for it.
Art takes lots of time, but I figure $2300-$2700 is about the going rate for a full-bore custom painted bike these days anyway. I'm not sure if that compensates for the extra time, but I'd like to find out!

Basically-
Once the world fully shits the bed I want to make sure that we can build enough bikes here in the CT river valley to support a decent lifestyle for myself without relying as heavily on production bikes which tie up immense amounts of capital that ages while frames sit around for a few months.

btw-

Anyone on here who is interested in getting some dealer information should PM me.

-m