Spanish Dealers Take Stand against Chainreaction.com

ALICANTE, Spain – In an open letter to the bicycle industry and through Facebook a group of Spanish dealers called upon renowned brands to stop supplying the Irish web shop Chainreaction.

“We are not fighting online sales. Despite that it is rapidly growing, we are aware of the fact that it also provides additional business to many retailers. We want to fight the price erosion inflicted by the large internet stores that have global distribution,” says Christian Tidow, initiator of the campaign and owner of Promobicis located near the Spanish city Alicante.

Tidow has created a website, www.antichainreaction.com, which explains in four languages- the objectives of his newly created platform. On this website he blames renowned brand names of direct involvement with these web shops and mainly Chainreaction, and with that destroying the dealers’ way of doing business.

“The brands, who are well aware of distributor’s and IBD’s effort to sell their products on the local markets, should never allow to sell their products in a low-cost online shop as this type of shop makes a profit from the hard work of smaller shops. This is unacceptable and we can’t allow it to go on in any way,” says Christian Tidow.

“The only reason why this big low-cost online shop can be successful on foreign markets is that they are offering products at a lower price than through the official distributors and with free delivery and customer service in the local language.”

“The local distributor can’t match the prices from this online shop as it has to pay the costs of stocking, distributing, promoting and advertising as well as a commercial margin for the IBDs. In the same way that a brand doesn’t allow a shop to buy its products at a foreign distributor, the brand shouldn’t allow a shop from other country to enter into a territory where there is already an established distributor.”

Tidow wants to have full commitment of suppliers and asks them to stop delivering their products to this low-cost online shop and also to check if their products are no longer available at Chainreaction. In the end he wants to publish a ‘white list’ on its website of brands committed to retailers.