Guerrilla Gravity Launches Innovative New Sales Model 5

While everyone else is introducing consumer-direct channels, why are you guys opening your Shop Direct channel?

We noticed while travelling the country how many mountain bike communities have their local bike shop at the heart of their scene. The Internet gets a lot of credit for replacing the brick and mortar shops, but the fact is there are a lot of bike shops out there who do a kickass job of serving their local riding scenes and have loyal customers to show for it.

The Shop Direct model allows riders in communities with a core local bike shop to buy our bikes and still support their shop. We build bikes for riders who like goin’ fast and those riders should have the freedom to choose how they purchase their Guerrilla Gravity bike.

So how does it compare to a standard dealer model?

The Shop Direct channel does not require a dealer agreement or any paperwork. The shop simply calls us up, gets a code for our site, and pulls the trigger. This also means that the channel lacks an exclusivity, or territory, component. It’s up to the shops to have loyal customers and the more bikes they order, the better they do on margin.

We also have our Outpost channel we’re starting concurrently where a shop can purchase a demo fleet and gets a bump in margin for keeping those on hand for riders to take out to the local trails.

But you’ll still have your Rider Direct channel as well, right?

Yup, that’s not going anywhere. Once again, we just want to give riders the choice. Riders are still more than welcome to make their purchase through us--on our website or in-store. We are committed to the best rider support in the industry, so are happy to field any questions, put together a custom build, or handle any other issues directly with the rider.

Do you think this is still a good deal for shops?

Absolutely. There are a few advantages for them:

1. It allows them to provide the bike that their customer wants vs having them defect to an internet purchase. They can still get all of the benefits of retaining that customer: sales support, accessories sales, ongoing maintenance service, etc.

2. There is no minimum inventory requirement. Inventory is expensive and ties up cash, and is only going to get more difficult to manage as the options available on the internet proliferate. This will be an especially big advantage for shops out who would like to be an Outpost and only keep the demo bikes on the floor, which generate revenue in their own right.

3. It allows the shops to compete with the other up and coming consumer-direct only brands. While our bikes are a little more than say, a Commencal or aluminum YT, they’re in-line price-wise with a Specialized or Trek, yet riders are getting a killer American-made bike that they can customize and make unique to them.

How would a rider purchase one of your bikes?

It’s pretty dang simple. The rider walks into their favorite shop and lets them know they’d like to get one of our bikes. The shop will walk through the options with them based on their preferences (every shop is a little different on their favorite components) and then they’ll take payment. After that the shop calls us up and gets the bike ordered. When the bike’s ready (1-3 weeks typically) we’ll ship it to the shop.

You can visit Guerrilla Gravity's website for more info: RideGG.com