Rick Vosper

Suppliers see direct-to-consumer sales fulfilled through retailers as a way to turn more prospects into customers and to keep more of the profit dollars. Retailers see it as an end-run around themselves and their hard-earned margins. Are they both right? No, they're both wrong. And here's why.

As a new generation of competitors enters the once-profitable high-end carbon bike market, everybody’s going to get squeezed … although probably not the way you’re thinking.

If competition among IBD, EBD and consumer-direct channels for e-bike dominance isn’t enough, there are two more looming market forces to consider. These have the potential to not just disrupt e-bike markets, but to turn the entire Bike 3.0 business model on its head.

Much Bigger Pond = Much Smaller Frog: The IBD's slice of the e-bike pie is a whole lot smaller than we think it is. It's time we stopped kidding ourselves about that fact ... and start getting a whole lot smarter about what we're going to do about it.