Wow, 3 pages of comments about a bike that no-one wants to buy!
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I saw this thread yesterday and resisted chiming in as I thought it might be better if it just quickly died a death!
Seriously though, there's a lot of interesting stuff here, some useful and insightful and some just plain wrong and ignorant. The key thing for me (personally) when reading a thread like this is to remember it doesn't really matter. Sure, there's some gobby shitebags that like to have their voice heard, so they shout louder, but those people are never going to be our customers, I kind of think of them as the same people in the audience at Top Gear, moaning about how crap the new Porsche 911 is and how they were just about to buy one but how now they'll just buy a Clio instead.
We think about things very carefully at Shand, we don't dive into things lightly and when we can't tell the whole story, sometimes things can look a little odd. I accept that this may be one of those occasions.
Importing a product directly from an overseas manufacturer and 'adding value' before selling on to the consumer is not a new business model, and I'll bet every single person on this thread has purchased something in this way. The bicycle consumer is pretty unique (I believe) as there's a small number of real geeks who not only want to know about the complete supply chain, but also want to shout and tell everyone else. I've not really come across them in other sectors, maybe they do exist, I don't know. Perhaps I just don't visit choppingboardtrackworld or pictureframes.net often enough. The thing is, you get to take your choice, you get to decide if buying something direct from the factory with the added risks is something you're happy doing. For some, they'll decide that they'll go that way. Good on them. For others, they'll do the sums, work out how much the extended warranty, custom paint finish, faster delivery, local pre-sales and after-sales care, fitting of headsets and BB etc, availability of spares etc is worth to them, and they'll make a decision. But, and here's the rub, I would bet that almost all of our customers who buy this bike will never have even thought about Alibaba or AliExpress or (shock horror) even know about STW. As is evidenced by just about every thread on this forum that mentions us, STW forum regulars are just not our type of customer (that sounded wrong, I meant that we're not their type of bike company). Also, we'll sell full bikes to riders who can't or don't want to build a bike themselves. That can be a deal breaker to some.
I am slightly surprised and perhaps a little worried about the comments regarding devaluing the brand. I don't really understand that. We still design, manufacture, paint and assemble the vast majority of our bikes in house. At the moment, that one carbon bike is the only thing we don't make. I hadn't considered how adding this bike would somehow lessen or cancel out all the other stuff we do. Someone commented that they were reconsidering buying a UK built Stoater from us in light of this new bike. That comment bothered me and I brought it up at work earlier. I think it was just a stupid, ill-informed comment to make but it bothered me more than I expected it to.
UK manufactured carbon frames (as Mike already commented) can be made here. It's something that we are working on right now. But it takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And when we do it, I guarantee, there'll be a thread on here about how expensive they are compared to Asian imported frames and why don't we just import something from China, paint it and sell it for a third of the price!
A last point as this is getting very long. I am passionate about manufacturing here in the UK. That's one of the biggest reasons I do what I do, I want to make stuff and I want to employ people who want to make stuff. The truth is, it's really hard. Like really, really hard. I want to build a better company for everyone involved at Shand and if that means looking elsewhere for revenue streams to help keep the workshop lights on so we can carry on making stuff, then I'll explore every avenue possible.
There's a lot more to this direction we're heading in than this one bike. It'll take time to come to fruition and hopefully it might bring some of the doubters round. Perhaps it'll all make sense at some point.
I'm unlikely to comment again on this thread (I really would like it to die!) but if people who were thinking about a Shand but are now unsure for whatever reason, please contact me directly and I'll be happy to talk through things on the phone or email.
Pretty interested in how it turns out... Though when I'm up for the Big Spendy Bike, I'll probably get measured up for a nice steel one :)
