Failed CF Campaigns & Cheap Batteries

[Cameron Newland]

Can Anyone Make CF Work?

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lazer-edge-series-ebike-starting-at-499#/

The Lazer Edge is back. What, you didn’t know it was gone?

Back on 1 March Ron Adamowicz posted a link to a bike called the Lazer Edge.

[...]

There's a listing on Kickstarter, same last name:

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...e-series-ebike-starting-at-695?ref=nav_search

Very low goal, so likely to fund under KS rules.

It's really strange that they're on both KS and IGG at the same time, and that he's got his wife's name on the campaigns instead of his own. I mean, if it were her product that she built, then that would change things, but I just googled Ron and he's the electric drag racing enthusiast, so it seems like his wife isn't the principal driver behind this line of ebikes. Obviously, I cannot be certain, but it seems strange to me as-is.

 

[pxpaulx]

There was every reason for the Sondors electric bike to be crowdfunded. First of all, it gave his brand lots of attention, media coverage, and free marketing. How else is an unknown brand supposed to generate millions of dollars in sales for an unknown product in just a matter of weeks?

The only way that the Sondors electric bike makes financial sense is by direct sales (cut out the LBS/dealers), but just selling factory-direct doesn't give you the marketing/media exposure that you need to sell lots of bikes, so crowdfunding is just the ticket. If Sondors had tried a different sales model, there would be tens of thousands fewer people who owned ebikes today. The industry is vastly better off with Sondors. A large proportion of Sondors buyers will buy better and more expensive ebikes later on down the line.

When Dell computer started selling factory direct PCs in the 1990s without the usual local computer store markup, were you this critical of them, too?

All the attention, coverage and marketing wasn't free - the review articles and online advertising are all paid for, and not by the crowdfunding sites.

Bikes direct is by far the biggest direct sales business, they seem to do well enough with online advertising and word of mouth/forum discussion - they even do pre-order runs, their fat bikes for instance are more often than not (at least they were last year) sold on pre-order only basis with limited available stock once they actually came in to the US for shipping.

10s of thousands is probably over-doing the numbers by at least a couple of 10s! You can find estimates of US e-bike sales online, for 2014 there were approximately 275,000 sold - if Sondors sold 10,000 bikes through his first campaign, that accounts for just 4% of the market for the year - not an insignificant amount to be sure, but also not game changing either. I do agree that a healthy low end helps from a buyer perspective, and won't complain about that one bit.

On that last point - you can buy a dell anywhere now, they are just like any other computer brand. If that happens for Sondors good for him - point is though, inevitably with growth comes saturation and expansion into the traditional market, and in the end at price points that are no different than the competitors.