How the bike industry works

Reposting from my nobmob blog as I think this deserves to get a wider airing.

This is an interesting Wordpress article series I came across yesterday surfing from site bicycles.net.au. From what I read here it looks to me like the current phase of structural adjustment in the bicycle market with the rise and rise of on-line selling seems to me to be in large part due to the bicycle manufacturing industry's own poor inventory management practices. It also confirms what many of us suspected about the supply chain.

Read on to see what I mean:

Ever wondered about pricing and why something that costs $20 to make then retails for $400? What about the inner workings of OEMs, OBMs and ODMs and their supply chains plus the impact of internet shopping on the cycling industry?

Industry expert Cam Whiting (previous from BMC) is exploring the ins and outs of the bike industry with particular focus on Asia and Australia in the Vertical limit series published on Cycling iQ:

Start with Part One: Vertical limit | blissful detachment: export utopia: http://cyclingiq.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/vertic...

Pricing structure breakdown can be found is part two: bicycle industry supply chains: http://cyclingiq.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/vertic...