I think this is as much or more to do with social perceptions than any particular industry or retail. It took Western markets several decades to accept that Japanese cars and electronics were as well made and designed as their European or American counterparts. We then repeated the process, slightly faster maybe, with Korean goods. China has been the workshop of the world for the whole of this century, so far, yet we still disparage these items with terms like "Chinesium" – sometimes justified* but often ignoring the high quality products from China, under Chinese and Western names.edocaster wrote: ↑25 Mar 2024, 11:34pmWhile my answer was primarily to supply the citation, it did interest me that without it, Bonzo Banana's claim would disappear into the ether (of course, I'm sure BB could provide more solid evidence too). It wasn't extensive research on my part, but I did go down a rabbit hole of seeing just how difficult it was to reach something resembling (what I believe is) the truth, at least on the English-language internet.Bmblbzzz wrote: ↑17 Mar 2024, 1:09pm So that would make Marin an Indonesian owned company, with HQ in Switzerland and design based in California, operating in over 40 countries worldwide. Like a great many companies, it's impossible to ascribe it one single nationality. How does that related to the state of retail in UK?
Instead, what you get is years of industry journalists repeating press releases, and not really doing any actual digging. Forums often aligned with these interpretations (Marin only use Insera Sena as a manufacturer, etc), because they had limited information. But also, it seems it wasn't really in anyone's interests to present a direct set of facts. Marin, the bike industry, industry journalists, Insera Sena themselves - why would they? After all, people will pay more for a Marin than a Polygon.
What was rather amusing was this quote: "Vanek couldn't say much about the new owners except that Minestone is a private group that does not own any other businesses that would align with Marin. 'It's not like some other acquisitions recently where we would become part of another group. We will still manage ourselves.'" (https://www.bicycleretailer.com/north-a ... acquistion) - the first half is, strictly speaking, true I guess.
While none of this has anything directly to do with cycle retail in the UK, it does demonstrate to some degree the abstraction from the physical product and its production which the (Western) cycling industry has reached. While this is certainly not the only industry where a large markup can be extracted based solely on brand perception, cycling is marketed as a lifestyle activity, hence is discretionary. It's not a part of a wider, unified industry, like power tools might be to DIY. Hence cycle retail rises and falls based on one activity and its popularity. But the industry has wedded its pricing structure to the segmentation demonstrated above. I think this backs the industry into a corner, where they can't upset the pricing hierarchy.
*And that low quality seems to be often driven by marketing rather than manufacture; Western and Chinese marketing, from Amazon to Temu.