Walmart Premuim Bicycles, $1,000 to $6,000 Viathon

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by zetroc

Mr. Chisholm,

No, I don't shop at Target either.

It's impossible to police the entirety of one's consumer choices. It is, however, possible to make the decisions here and there about where one spends one's money, and nobody is required to be accountable to people on the internet about it.

Have a good day.

Steve

No doubt but many companies are not the best to their employees..Walmart(again, not a wallyworld fanboy) just seems like a convenient target is all, Nike too(a lot of that is interweb baloney).

Accountable to ME? You must be joking..nobody on this or any other interweb anything is accountable to me or anybody else. Sorry you took it personally.
You shop where YOU wish or wish NOT to...please continue.

[asindc]

I’ll pass.

[Buckeye]

Originally Posted by steveandbarb1

What's next - Amazon branded bikes...

This is a bit of a dumpster dive but this thread came up in a search on Decathlon bikes/sporting goods.

Amazon branded bikes might not be too much of a stretch. My niece uses one of those Peloton stationaries and the other day I had heard that Amazon was selling a competitor to that for a lot less money. Evidently that is not the case as the company Echelon is selling a "Peloton-like" competitor for $499 and has named it a "Prime Bike." The name understandably caused some people to believe that the product was coming from Amazon. Amazon has purportedly told Echelon to quit using the name "Prime."

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/...-bike-offering

[retropean]

Originally Posted by Buckeye

This is a bit of a dumpster dive but this thread came up in a search on Decathlon bikes/sporting goods.

Amazon branded bikes might not be too much of a stretch. My niece uses one of those Peloton stationaries and the other day I had heard that Amazon was selling a competitor to that for a lot less money. Evidently that is not the case as the company Echelon is selling a "Peloton-like" competitor for $499 and has named it a "Prime Bike." The name understandably caused some people to believe that the product was coming from Amazon. Amazon has purportedly told Echelon to quit using the name "Prime."

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/...-bike-offering

Actually even worse, apparently in the original press release they claimed it was developed "in collaboration with Amazon."

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/23/2...ton-competitor

Maybe... in that its a collaboration that Amazon will sell the bike on their website...

[benb]

Walmart is such a common target.

I don't have a Walmart anywhere convenient enough to go there on a regular basis. Nearest one is maybe 10 miles away, but it's a small Walmart, not a normal one, and it is nearly an hour away depending traffic.. it just happens to be along a very nasty traffic route from my house.

But when I go in a Walmart I never fail to notice that for whatever bad reputation for selling inexpensive/cheap stuff to people who don't have a lot of money there is one truth.

They run their business really well.

I am mostly in there when traveling and we're looking for groceries.

IMO there are 3 places I see for groceries that are well run:
- Whole Foods/Amazon - high prices, high quality, store is well run, lots of employees, short lines
- Wegmans - medium prices, high quality, store is well run, lots of employees, short lines
- Walmart - cheapest prices, medium quality, store is well run, lots of employees, short lines

Then you've go the whole rest of the market:
- High prices, medium quality, store is not well run, long lines, very few employees

So you've got the well run businesses able to have more employees on the floor and deliver medium to high quality with good customer service & short lines verse the poorly run companies that seem to be unable to put employees on the floor and yet have high prices.

Walmart knows what they're doing.. we like to hold bikes up as beautiful butterflies but 99% of bikes are just another consumer product outsourced to Asia. Walmart is the undisputed heavy weight champ of outsourcing stuff to Asia.

The only difference between a Specialized and Walmart in this game if Walmart gets in would be what price point they ask the Asian supplier to build to and whether Walmart would want to drop a zillion bucks on marketing like BigBikeCo does.

[Zackus]

Looks like the Viathon project might not have worked out. Website has gone down.

Perhaps they're re-building, but that seems unlikely. It's strange to me though. They could not have had a hungrier bike market the past year, and they did offer great value, they got decent reviews, and they were being sold through the world's largest company.

So what went wrong?

Disconnect from their target market?

[Clean39T]

Originally Posted by Zackus

Looks like the Viathon project might not have worked out. Website has gone down.

Perhaps they're re-building, but that seems unlikely. It's strange to me though. They could not have had a hungrier bike market the past year, and they did offer great value, they got decent reviews, and they were being sold through the world's largest company.

So what went wrong?

Disconnect from their target market?

They blew them out at Walmart on BF. Maybe couldn't get a second run together due to Covid. Who knows.

[Zackus]

Originally Posted by Clean39T

They blew them out at Walmart on BF. Maybe couldn't get a second run together due to Covid. Who knows.

I saw some of those deals. The G.1 Rival was a pretty great deal. Approaching just the cost of the components, get a free frame and assembled bike for free!

I honestly thought there was room to improve on branding. Clearly that was one of the areas where costs were cut.

[ORMojo]

Looks like it is just supply issues. From FB:

Screenshot_20201210-193523.jpg

Screenshot_20201210-193406.jpg

[prototoast]

It's not surprising they're having supply chain struggles. It's a little surprising they were offering such great black friday sales when they knew they weren't going to have inventory. But I guess the luxury of being a Walton is you've always got something else to sell.

[ridethecliche]

Their gravel bike was very well received

[ORMojo]

Originally Posted by ridethecliche

Their gravel bike was very well received

Yes, it was. There are still 2 size 58 framesets available at the $699 shipped price.

[ORMojo]

Originally Posted by prototoast

It's a little surprising they were offering such great black friday sales when they knew they weren't going to have inventory.

Lots of Black Friday/Cyber Monday items are for sale in limited quantities, supply issue or not. Drives bodies to store, eyes to web site.

[Hilltopperny]

I thought the sales were too good to pass up. I ended up picking up one of the R1 framesets and am going to build it up as a budget friendly go fast road bike.
It may see some Winter road miles if we do not end up with large amounts of snow this year.

[yinzerniner]

Originally Posted by Hilltopperny

I thought the sales were too good to pass up. I ended up picking up one of the R1 framesets and am going to build it up as a budget friendly go fast road bike.
It may see some Winter road miles if we do not end up with large amounts of snow this year.

I ended up getting one of the G1 framesets for my brother's christmas gift, and in the process of building it up as well. $699 for a 1040g frame and 395g fork (actual weights) with a warranty is pretty darn spiffy if you ask me.

He hasn't ridden in a LONG time, so the idea is to get it built with some stuff I have lying around for use on a trainer or very close and safe rides, but with the larger tire clearance and fat rubber he can be off the busy roads if he wants.