So I’m just gonna throw out a few random thoughts and preface it by saying I have zero inside knowledge on the deal….I’m just trying to connect a few dots.
My guess is that they bikes are getting “nearly-assembled” in Asia and shipped that way. Paying a US employee to unpack a bike, near-assemble it and then re-box it makes absolutely no sense financially. Similarly, does it make sense to pay for the added freight to ship the nearly-assembled bikes to the US if they are going to a dealer?
Now let’s look at my buddy’s case above….he wanted two kids bikes and was told by the LBS not until May. But he was able to order them direct from Specialized for immediate delivery.
It could be that Specialized is bringing the bikes over both ways….near-assembled for consumer-direct sales and just sub-assembled for bike shops. That would help explain why the two bikes my buddy got were not available to the LBS.
Again, total speculation on my part, but there is some logic to it. But the again, doubling your SKU count and order-management challenges is kinda dumb, too….
But if dealers start realizing that Specialized is holding back bikes for direct-to-consumer sales while they miss out, there will be a revolt, I suspect.
It could also be that Specialized is doing the same shared-revenue program that they have always done with their dealers via the their alliance network.