KENT, Wash. (BRAIN) — Raleigh bikes are now sold on Amazon as part of Accell North America's growing omnichannel strategy. ANA recently began selling on Amazon with a few select models and has gradually increased the SKU count.
Most of the models offered are priced at $800 and below, said Chris Speyer, managing director for Accell North America, parent company of Raleigh, Diamondback and Redline.
In October, Raleigh Electric was established as a stand-alone business headquartered out of Accell Group's Electric Bike Competence Center (EBCC) in Simi Valley, and reporting directly to its Dutch parent Accell Group NV in the Netherlands. Haibike, Ghost, Izip and Raleigh Electric are run as separate entities. Raleigh Electric bikes will continue to be fulfilled through dealer partners.
While Diamondback has been sold on Amazon and at sporting goods retailers for a number of years, Raleigh had been strictly sold through specialty retail until last spring when ANA launched online sales on Raleigh's U.S. website and began allowing dealers to sell bikes on their store websites.
A number of Raleigh dealers were selling the brand through Amazon's marketplace as ANA opened up its internet distribution, Speyer said. "What we've done is extended it to make sure the product is available through that channel," Speyer said.
"We completely understand that not everybody will like the decision," he said. "On the other hand, we want to make sure we're making the brand available to consumers."
Speyer said it has become increasingly difficult for Raleigh to sell through specialty bike shops as many continue to devote a significant percentage of their open to buy to the Big Three. "That's OK by us, but we need to make sure consumers can find goods somewhere," he said.
Accell Group NV pointed to omnichannel distribution as a growth strategy in light of reduced sales at U.S. specialty retail in its latest announcement about third-quarter revenue.
"From our perspective, the world is changing really fast and our responsibility is to adapt to the way the world is changing," Speyer said. "It's crystal clear to us that being able to find a Raleigh bicycle and make that purchase, in a lot of cases, we won't be able to do that through just one channel."
