[rustylion]

Bill here from Serotta.

I wanted to weigh in with the “official response” to some of the questions and comments you mentioned in this thread. Just to let you know I’m listening....

Who is our competition? I think all of you have already done a great job defining that for me. Not much for me to add. It’s a big marketplace full of lots of competitors who are all clamoring for your dollars. We have to take note of all of them. All we want to do in the end is earn a few of those dollars you are willing to throw at your passion.

What I can say is that in the product/price categories we choose to compete in, I believe two things after this most recent price adjustment: 1. we are a great bike at a similar price to what brands already exists in the market in those same product/price categories or 2. where we might be priced at a premium, I have good reason to do so; I’m ok with the premium. In those cases, we are not just pricing above market blindly but rather because there is some design/engineering/manufacturing/build kit reason to do so.

Is innovation, rather than micro price adjustments coming? Well, yes, and you will see it. Pronto is coming soon. Pave prototype will be out of the paint shop shortly. And, there is more. The company is in motion with some things able to happen faster than others. The pricing analysis took awhile but less time than R&D/product development.

By the way, you may call them “micro” but I personally will take a price reduction any time I can get one. A couple of hundred dollars or more here and there pays for the other costs of my cycling passion.

Why sell complete bicycles? Because that’s what you ride: a complete bike. Ben sees the bike as a system and the frame set (our contribution) is only a piece of the system. Buy an awesome custom MeiVici, slap lousy wheels and components on it, get a bad ride and you will think your Serotta is a lousy ride. Just like buying a car, most of us don’t buy a chassis, a motor, etc...and put it together ourselves. We depend on the car company engineers to figure out how to spec the best car for the price. We are finding our way on this concept but you may see us slowly move more towards complete bikes as systems.

What makes us better/different than competition? Can Serotta name it? Can our Serotta Factory Professionals name it? Does reality support it? You bet we know what makes us better/different and you will see us communicate that more openly and effectively. I cannot comment on whether our field reps know we what know; I have not met all of them yet. But, I do know a bunch of them; they know more than I do about Serotta. Hmmm, the reality part is hard because “reality” always seems to be a moving target. The world was flat not long ago and that was “reality.” I would say we will present what we believe the facts to be and let all of you decide for yourselves.

By the way, the Serotta Factory Professional program we announced earlier this month is designed to address any lack of expertise in your local area that you mentioned. We are taking on the responsibility to make Serotta factory expertise available to our representatives and will provide them with onsite and online resources to be as knowledgeable as we are here inside the Serotta walls.

Thanks a bunch.