There is much debate surrounding the reasons for purchasing a bike online. But are they all justified? I spoke to some of the main players of South Africa’s growing online shopping community to find out how they started, why they did so and what some problems they encountered. I also asked about some of the typical concerns that customers would usually worry about, such as after market servicing and grey imports. This is Part 1 with Chris Willemse Jnr of Chris Willemse Cycles (CWC).
Why Online?
What actually happened was that we had a guy that offered to buy ten Dura Ace group sets from me and I phoned the local distributors in South Africa and asked them for a better deal on the groupsets and they told me ‘no’. Apparently there was another bike shop that also got the same request, so the guy was shopping around, and they didn’t want to give me the same deal they gave the other bike shop. I was really, really disappointed. And because we were really good friends with Mario Cippolini at the time, my dad actually phoned him and asked him if it’s possible to get a hold of Shimano groupsets, and he said, ‘no problem’. I mean, in Europe you can get cycling equipment anywhere. And he came back with a price, and it was like 4 grand cheaper than what I could get it locally for. Then I contacted the client and immediately he took it. And then we just decided, there’s a big gap; somebody, somewhere, some okes are making a lot of money in this country, they’ve basically got a monopoly; they can ask what they want for the components because nobody’s importing. So then we were sourcing more and more, and we saw that this is a big opportunity.
Chris Willemse Jr.
Price and Availability
Chris Willemse Jnr
CWC haven’t chosen to stock niche products for the most part, instead supplying the most popular. It’s the two extremities. On the one hand you sell to the main market: all the most popular manufacturers and best selling products for the masses, but only occupying a piece of the market. And on the other you have a niche market: most of what you sell is sold only by you, but your market is significantly smaller. CWC are on the former hand and it brings its own sorts of problems.
After two years we won the court case and then after we won that then all the wholesalers were like, ‘If Mavic International fought for two years and couldn’t get it right, then I’m sure the guy around the corner is not going to get anything right and it’s not worth taking them to court’… Wholesalers are still complaining, because we basically cut out the middle man. If we cut out the middle man with some products or some brands that we can, we try and sell it to the public at what the rest of our competition and other bike shops buy the item for. It actually helped us go that way and now we are not actually importing that much any more and buy bulk from the local guys. They saw the light, as there’s no point because you can’t stop us and now we rather go to the supplier… and some of the okes are flexible and go the extra mile and give us better deals, and the guys that don’t, then we just keep on importing. It’s become such a competitive market now that there’s no loyalty. I need to go where I get the best deal. If it’s 5% more expensive then I’ll buy it local, I’ll support guy, but when it starts, 20, 30% then at the end of the day I’ll gain his cut prices and be cheaper than the rest, so we need to do it. Sometimes it’s not nice to think there’s a guy with his business, he’s importing into the country and I undercut, or cut them out and basically import it direct, but then again that’s how I survive.
Service
CWC has had some difficulty with stocking items, at times even selling the last of one item twice in 5 minutes. This has been down to the fact that the CWC online shop is connected to their Tygervalley store, so stock between the two can get messy.
CWC have come to the conclusion that a shop-front with an online store in the back doesn’t work. There’s too many double orders to the point that their stock cannot keep up. So in order to solve this they are looking to separate the LBS from online, with an independent warehouse and a small showroom in case a customer wants to pick up their products or see what is on offer in person. It will basically be a distribution warehouse where the online will be held and where distribution to their shops will also take place.
What this will surely help with it keeping the two kinds of shops separate and allow them to focus on the different kinds of services that each shop needs. LBS’s need to give individual and personable attention. Customers mostly come into the shop if they want to talk to someone face to face, and they especially want to be able to take their time. So for the shop to worry about an item being carried around while it has already being bought online is not ideal.
Online shops need to be accurate in their service. If something says it’s in stock, then it should be. If you’ve ordered and have paid for something, you want to receive it. Keeping the online store separate will also allow more individual attention to be paid to online customers, making them feel like it is not only a store that sells things, but also a place where you can get information about the products being sold.
Chris Willemse Cycles: www.cwcycles.co.za
HAHA! I had that happen to me - CWC Online sale but two guys (one being me) bought the last item at the same time. I got a different brand product, with similar spec, for the same price. Awesome service!
But I do see how separating the Online stock from the 'Physical' shop stock.