degggendorf t1_j723bl0 wrote on February 3, 2023 at 3:00 PM

FWIW, Trek Bikes' retail strategy has been a bit predatory and you may want to look into it a bit more before patronizing them. They have a habit of freezing out independent shops, not allocating Trek bikes for them to sell, buying them out when their business drops, then converting it to 100% Trek sales. For example, the former NBX Warwick is now Trek Warwick. NBX Warwick used to carry Trek, Scott, Santa Cruz, Cervelo, and a dozen other niche brands. Now the Trek store just sells Trek. In my opinion, that's a loss for the biking community as a whole.

stosyfir t1_j724p28 wrote on February 3, 2023 at 3:09 PM

Really a shame too - that place was great when it was Caster's.

Chimbo84 OP t1_j72xkyl wrote on February 3, 2023 at 6:13 PM

Totally agree. I saw that happen to my old shop before we moved to this area last year. I avoid those shops.

SheistyBengal t1_j73cp92 wrote on February 3, 2023 at 7:49 PM

The NBX in Gansett still sells all those brands. I seem to remember at the time the owner wanted to focus on one location - all the other NBX (now Trek) locations in RI were bought out

degggendorf t1_j73dxzb wrote on February 3, 2023 at 7:57 PM

Yep for sure, the Narragansett NBX is a great local "real" bike shop.

The slightly-insider (former owner of a different shop) story I heard is that it wasn't such a friendly thing like he was already trying to sell and Trek kindly came along to help out...it was a bit more coerced.

SheistyBengal t1_j73erwd wrote on February 3, 2023 at 8:02 PM

Very interesting. Matt is a great guy so I have no doubts he put lipstick on the situation as to not drag them publicly. Plus, he’s still selling their product lol

These mass producers get too big for their own good sometimes and very easy to forget their roots (coming from a Trek owner)

degggendorf t1_j73l0ej wrote on February 3, 2023 at 8:42 PM

It really does seem like manufacturers trying to get into retail often doesn't go well.

I'm in a completely different manufacturing industry, we've dipped our toes into first-party distribution and we just cannot manage to do it profitably. It's just such a completely different skillset that our organization isn't set up for.

Similar story with Andersen windows. Manufacturing is fine as far as national brands go, but the Renewal by Andersen sales arm is totally predatory.

I really don't know about Trek's internal setup, but if it's anything like what I've seen elsewhere, there are targets set by the higher ups, with healthy incentives for the Sales Dept to him them, which leads to unsustainably aggressive behavior.