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I wonder what kind of revenue projections were made when they decided to acquire these domains/companies?
With the breadth of the Internet and search engine capabilities it's pretty easy to find the best deal on just about anything now. The lowest price offering gets all the business, so when it comes to sales it's practically all or nothing.
Most of these companies do well when they can buy closeout and discontinued products cheaply and sell them at attractive prices, but current stock is so competitive that overhead has to be really low to generate sales and hit any kind of sustainable margin. And I would cite Rivendell and one of the companies feeling the pinch these days. Early on Grant offered a lot of traditional stuff that was closed-out and considered obsolete. That supply has dried up.
I'm really beginning to wonder if the bicycle market will have a much steeper decline with the loss of budget components from European and domestic suppliers. I think enthusiast like ourselves have kept a lot of things moving along because we could feed our hobby (addiction) with budget gear and bikes.
There's a lot of gear that will need to wear out before things pick up again.
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