> I just feel that unless Mr. Starck is also being
> satyrical,
Nope.
his
> critique of Don Wilson was a shade over the top. I
> like the list best
> when we can disagree with humor and with concern for
> each other's hard
> earned opinions. I come back to the list again and
> again, not just to
> learn and to share what I can, but because I know I
> am in a subset of
> society which is much more well behaved and
> respectful and intelligent.
> I think others might also be happy with our small,
> sympathetic group.
>
> Garth Libre in Miami Fl.
Archive-URL:
http://search.bikelist.org/
Let me start by saying my bonafides regarding bike making and market are zero. Second, once upon a time in a galaxy far far away I developed marketing strategies and feasibility studies in a variety of real estate categories and I've fiddled with game theory and published a wee bit on bargaining and value theory, and I've counseled clients on sales, purchases and trades. Big deal. It didn't make me rich. But I did learn a bit from persons who did get rich about how they got that way selling things.
For anything custom and low run, you charge through the nose whether they are any good or not, and whether they sell or not. Lowering price to stimulate demand is a suicide strategy.
Custom things are made for persons who can afford custom things--pure and simple. The trick is to make those persons want the custom thing. You don't seriously think that Enzo Ferrari gave a tinker's darn whether race drivers, or skillful amateur drivers drove his Ferrari street cars, do you? At first, street cars were just a side line for him anyway, a way to recoup costs on some of his racers. Tune'em down a little, change the carb jetting to something that would start up in the morning and sell it as a custom sports car. Racing and parts were how he made his early bucks. Later he figured out he could make more selling the Ferrari racing mystique to wannabe rich guys than he could racing, but from the start, when he sold custom cars they were fabulously overpriced. Overprice. Overprice. Overprice. Always massively overprice for anything custom. You don't know how rich the rich are. You'll never know how rich they are. All you can know is that they can afford ANYTHING NO MATTER WHAT THE PRICE IS if they want it. Make them want it.
Frankly, it can never be too high for a custom product. In fact, if your price isn't high enough to make even a wealthy person think three times, then you need to get a day job. Rare excellence doesn't just cost the rich, it is supposed to hurt them. Everyone has a little masochist in them and when you are rich you can just about completely isolate yourself from the normal wear and tear of life that bogs down the rest of us. During those periods when a rich person is free from heart the heart breaks and disasters that befall us all regardless of our level of affluency, they need to go out and buy something fun the way you and I do, too. And if it doesn't press some kind of pain/fear barrier, then its not really a real treat. Ya follow? You hear the stories about rich people not getting rich by being loose with their money, about being cheap, about J.Paul Getty flying second class, etc., etc. Rich people are not cheap. They are rich enough to indulge in eccentricities. J. Paul Getty may have flown second class, but he had one of the world's great art collections, which he paid handsomely for and mansions around the world, which he paid handsomely for when it suited him and spent vast sums of money on all kinds of things.
But back to bike prices. It is ludicrous and illogical to think of the proper customer for the custom bike as necessarily a person who rides 150 miles a week and gets all the utility out of a custom bike that there is to be gotten. You want RICH RIDERS with a taste for the best and hopefully enough brains to know what the best is. And if the rich don't want $10,000, even $20,000 dollar bikes, then it is your job to market to them until they do. Like any group, they can be persuaded.
How is that done in other custom segments?
In cars, you have to be at the leading edge of technology and style...and market.
In clothes, you have to be at the leading edge in style...and market.
Most other custom products fall under one of these two preceding categories.
Only in fine custom shotguns can I think of a good that is made by craftsmen to the highest standards for use and enjoyment by sportsmen...with chiefly word of mouth marketing.
So: since there are more than a few custom shot gun makers that continue to thrive in the world, custom bike makers ought to look to them for inspiration in how to price and market...unless they want to lead in technology, which they apparently do not. A superb custom shotgun easily costs $10K. Depending on what is inlaid and the extent of the engraving, it can cost much, much more. I would bet that there are far more custom made shotguns made in the world each year than there are KOF bicycles made each year, even though there is far less opportunity to use a custom made shot gun than a bicycle.
That group of persons this is rich is now richer and larger than at any time in history. I repeat, that group of persons is richer and greater in number now than at any time in history. Saleen sells his wet dream sports car, the S7, which certainly offers less practical function than any KOF bike, for about $500k. Lotus sells utterly useless (except for a Saturday at Willow Springs) Elises with Toyota 4 bangers for $50K. A custom Italian suit made by piece work seamstresses maybe occassionally under the watchful eye of some haut designer brings $5-10K (maybe more). Don't even get me started on haut coutour prices for women's dresses. Leading KOF builders need to start studying how the other custom goods producers market and price stuff. They should be charging at least $10,000 to $20,000 for their frame and fork set, not grovelling around at $3000. You give these guys $10-20k a frameset and you'll see not only the dynamic quality of their frames continue unmatched, but you'll see innovations in engraving, painting, and perhaps even in frame design that will begin to make your head spin within ten years. Custom frames should be aimed at the same persons who buy custom cars and custom clothes--extremely wealthy people. And priced accordingly. That's the news. Its bad for most of us. But if we love the bikes and the men/women who build them, then we've got to get them marketing to the right people. As an aside, it was craftsmen who started the first unions--called guilds--to collude on price and supply. KOF's might consider emulating their craftsmen forefathers and form a KOF guild and informally set the price at $10K. Nothing in writing. Nothing untoward or illegal. Just the kind of implied strategic cooperation that seems to hold sway in many of the major oligopolies of the world that dominate our lives these days. Heck, maybe they could call themselves the KOF oligopoly (just kidding there). Still, one more oligopoly wouldn't hurt much at this point and it might keep these guys making custom bikes better and better. We'll know when they've succeeded when nepotism rears its hoary head. As long as they don't send their own kids into it, we'll know its a dead end game.
Don Wilson Los Olivos, CA
D.C. Wilson dcwilson3@yahoo.com
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