We’ve heard rumors floating around for a long time now, but Canyon has finally made it official. From next spring 2017, they will bring their direct sales model to consumers in the United States. Cyclists in the states have been eyeing Canyon’s premier road and trail offerings for several years, with promises of competitive pricing. Now with a flurry of other big brands bringing consumer-direct sales options to American bike buyers, it seems that now is the time…
It hasn’t been an easy step for Canyon, as moving into the huge US market means going head-to-head with a lot of big companies. With Trek and Giant having recently announced Direct to Consumer web sales, the online bike marketplace is blowing up to join Bulls Bikes, Canfield Brothers, YT Industries, Mongoose, and many more. Getting into the US market also means needing to be prepared to ramp up production to meet the expected demand, and dealing with a whole other legal and liability framework. Canyon seems to have even had a few hiccups when they expanded Down Under before they had their expanded production up and running, but says that they’ve learned a lot from moving out of Europe, and this knowledge has built a foundation for their expansion to the States.
To make the move work Canyon has teamed up with TSG Consumer Partners, a big US private equity firm, that will bring with them the funding to deal with the growth. As a part of the deal TSG is said to become a minority owner in Canyon. That added capital is what allowed Canyon to more than quadruple their production last fall.
Canyon has laid out a rough timeline to have a USA-targeted website up and running at the start of 2017, and is working now to set up a dedicated customer support and tech service center in the US. Bikes destined for the American market will still be built-up in their recently updated Koblenz, Germany headquarter from Taiwanese frames, and then delivered to the US. Just back in October 2015 Canyon opened up the new modernized production facility in Koblenz, with ample reserve capacity, and has seen record outputs ever since.
Buyers in the US will be able to expect delivery in 2-6 weeks from online order, with some bikes being shipped from US warehousing and some direct from Germany. Like all of their bikes now, US-delivered Canyons will come almost fully assembled (usually just requiring the stem and handlebar to be rotated and torqued into place), with final assembly easy to do by any home mechanic.
