Bike trade is missing the big picture, says Strida designer

Strida designer Mark Sanders – who received an iF gold design award recently for his latest bike project – gave a presentation to industry figures at the Taipei bicycle trade show. He used the Blue Ocean marketing strategy to point out that the bike trade is marketing to just a small part of the potential market for its product.

Sanders is director of MAS Design Products.

The Blue Ocean Strategy is the title of a business book by W. Chan Kim. It’s subtitled ‘How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant’.

The blue ocean in Sanders’s presentation is the market potential; the bike trade operates in the smaller, ‘red ocean’ of male, sporty enthusiasts.

Sander says, "I put on the presentation because I believe the industry focuses too much on sporty males – which may put off the vast majority of potential cyclists. It’s also about how alternative and universal bike design may be a help in attracting more people to bikes as transport.

"I expected flack from industry leaders, but quite the contrary, they seemed to agree 100 percent. But it seems to be a chicken and egg scenario: manufacturers supply what distributors ask for. The demand comes from grass-roots bike shops, which tend to be run by sporty males. Not focussing on the bigger market matters in the current economic climate."

Notes and slides for the presentation can be found in page-flippy mode on Issuu.com here and here.