Wahoo in for a bumpy ride?

Haha in car navigation is been useless since Waze!

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Its not necessarily short term thinking to do what you need to do to take advantage of a boom time then contract when the boom ends. Its called the business cycle for a reason. It may look like chaos from the outside, and certainly at some companies it is, but its also possible that at well run companies, making hay while the sun shines then dealing with a downturn when it inevitably comes was always part of a long term plan.

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Of course….As someone who is the consumer medical device industry, I probably have as good a grasp of how COVID affected sales cycles as almost anyone. Besides the obvious thermometer boom, our BP sales have been skyrocketing for two years.

Each year as we have worked out our budget, we have been cautious and warned against an impending bubble burst. It was inevitable…just as with trainers, blood pressure monitors are durables, not consumables.

There is not “blood pressure consumer”…it is a needs-driven purchase and once that purchase is made, you are out of the category for a number of COVID boom meant that we had pulled many new consumers into making purchases, largely thanks to telehealth growth and a general focus on overall health (duh), but we always knew it was gonna end. Thermometers burst last year and this year, sales of BP monitors are beginning to decline. It is not dissimilar to the trainer market burst we are seeing now.

You can take advantage of the boom and still develop responsible forecasts / productions.

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The trend is interesting:

So sales on wireless BP monitors soon as they get cheap enough just to play with? (rise in resting bp caused by overtraining)

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Nah, we managed our inventory pretty well. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I keep trying to find a way to crack a sports-specific BPM…but haven’t found compelling data to warrant one. Yet. :sunglasses:

True. But aside from the pandemic-driven bubble in fitness equipment, I think (high-end) fitness equipment is perhaps also even more cyclically sensitive than something like BP monitors?

In any case, it seems the drop-off in sales of high-end fitness devices like home-trainers is harder and faster than anticipated.

Oh sure…our business is pretty consistent, with only a few spikes (Heart Health Month being the big one). Trainers are clearly a largely seasonal business…but they also have sufficient historical sales data to know how to manage that aspect of their demand cycles.

I would phrase it differently: it’s a pretty stagnant market. That is: none of the major players are really introducing anything that makes a newer trainer massively better than the existing trainers. That doesn’t mean there aren’t major improvements that could be made. But I think it is going to take a new entrant to shake up the market.

For example: if Mouverti can pull off the accuracy, “real feel”, and isn’t outrageously expensive, then I think it will substantially move the needle. For me at least, the integration of “rockr plate” and a full smart bike is the only thing that would drive me to upgrade from the gen1 Stages SB20 I have now.

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Yeah, the days of marginal improvements being enough to warrant a new model / entry into the market are over. A few % points improvement in accuracy is insignificant, etc.

You need to bring a new experience to the market if you are gonna be a new entrant / look to gain market share.

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Sure, you can kludge together a setup like you have, but a system designed from the ground up could provide a much better and simpler experience that just works.

I have a rocker plate for use with my SB20, and while it helps, the motion feels nothing like riding an actual bike. And the setup is incredibly finicky to get the SB20 perfectly aligned down the centerline of the rocker plate. Slightly off, and it feels like it’s rolling on the sea / waves

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Whats the Wahoo product cycle time usually - I see loads of Kickr v5’s on discount and am thinking of upgrading my gen 1 finally, but wondering of its over supply and stock or is Wahoo likely to replace it this year?

I’m guessing the Covid and supply issues probably delayed NPD but what is their usual cycle?

By cyclical, I was actually thinking about economic fluctuations more than seasonal. Right now, I believe we are seeing a hard shift from excess pandemic-driven demand to some belt-tightening due to inflationary concerns.

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The article points to some meaningful product launches and refreshes this year (but of course not which)

The previous Kickr versions has been release in 14, 16, 17, 18 and 20 so we could be due an update within too long. The questions is how different a gen5 and gen6 would be? A gen5 at a firesale may not be such a bad purchase after all.

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I think what is often not apparent is how the number of units may or may not impact cost. I am an accountant by trade. Client had a part that could be manufactured in North America…cost would be $25,000. The same item could be made in Southeast Asia for $10,000 for 3 of them. My client couldn’t always use 3 of the specific unit so he would just have an extra on hand which really was of no value.

I have seen other items of similar nature….volume drives deal for the final price per unit. Excess inventory at a lower price may just be all pure profit from the sense the early units more then covered the cost of goods sold.

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Maybe. I think you could get pretty close with something conceptually like the Mouverti, but it will take some out of the box thinking.

Forgive me if I’m being thick but what does BP stand for please?

Blood Pressure.

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Don’t think it’s the marginal improvements that make people buy a new trainer, but when compatability fails - axle adaptors, rear mech clearance, communication protocol etc. Similar to bikes, lots of people ride their bike until lack of parts makes it too difficult to fix.

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:smiling_face:

Speaking of BP, I genuinely believe that most of what wahoo makes is good stuff, but their HR monitors are garbage! I went through 3 warranty replacement s on my tickrX before saying the hell with it and just got a damn Polar!

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