I’m still on Source’s mailing list despite not buying from them for a couple of years now.
Following their sneaky little “Go Bust, be the only attendees of the secret stock sell off, buy it all back for peanuts” manoeuvre, I have been fairly certain they will sell it all off and then go bust again.
So I do check out their website, out of curiosity, even though I’m not buying anything from them anymore. It seems to me that since the Bust&Benefit thing they haven’t seemed to stock any new hardware. They part own, I believe, the Stay Strong brand and they do seem to be pushing that still, but I’ve not noticed any promos for new hardware from any of the leading BMX brands. Maybe I’ve missed it. I don’t watch *that* closely. But for sure I’ve not had any emails saying “CULT 2024 FRAMES NOW IN STOCK” or anything like that.
I did get a FRESH NEW STOCK IN STORE NOW! email this morning though, so I clicked it to see what they had.
Adidas Samba-like leisure sneakers and tracksuit tops, Santa Cruz teeshirts and caps that I KNOW are not this year’s styles. A drizzle of Vans clothing, footwear and soft accessory merch. A smattering of Etnies sneakers in single colourways only. Jacuzzi brand graphic tees (who?). Then we get to their StayStrong ridiculously overpriced racing frames, which remain ridiculously overpriced… and that’s it.
Okay sure we’re coming into Spring so it’s a good time to push Spring/Summer clothing, but… is this all they have to promote? A lot of it feels like they might have just bought up the bankrupt stock from a skateboard/sport shop that’s just closed its doors.
There is essentially nothing here that suggests a business doing stock arrangements with major BMX brands.
Are they on their last gasp now?
Am I reaching too hard into speculation?
https://www.sourcebmx.com/collections/latest-products?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=16032024-EN-NEW-ARRIVALS-GENERAL+(01HS0REDX20P8BVS9Q2BZWP1AF)&_kx=rQkSX_qm6pZv3nD6ocMkO57p9SDnNARoG-o7OY4wldxK39H2S-1hJyt2EN89Upie.JHaXfd
by Awkward_Importance49
4 Comments
Isn’t the bike industry (sans Ebikes) in general doing terrible as a whole?
I know a few guys in the upper ends of road racing. Riding in the big tours etc and a few of them have taken pay cuts and teams are looking at streamlining their setups cutting extra staff, grouping and consolidating work to smaller teams of support staff etc. Looking to save LOTS of money, and when they’re paying riders upwards of 1 million euros a year for mid tier domestique positions the fact you’re looking to cut from 30-50% of your team budget that year might be indicative of the bike industry taking a little crash in general. And thats coming from one of the more popular areas of the industry.
From much less popular areas where theres much less money, interest and growth I imagine the cuts are going to be even bigger.
I believe Ebike sales are starting to outpace regular bike sales in mainland europe as prices for them comes down and tech gets better/cheaper.
Sucks to see a bmx retailer struggling. Theres literally 0 decent bikes shops of any kind near me, and there basically never has been in my extended memory. Only ever seen second hand bike shops or chain shops like Evans.
Source started out running their shop and skatepark and moved up from there. They support their local and extended scene with events and coaching sessions. they offer free youth sessions aswell quite often.
I’ve been keeping my eye on it for a while too and noticed that email in my inbox this morning, pretty sneaky because I just scrolled down the email and saw bmx parts so figured they were actually bringing in new stock, but like you said, nothing to suggest anything new from big bmx brands on the website.
I wonder how many companies and suppliers refuse to deal with them anymore? Based on the drastic attempt to keep going I imagine they left a lot of accounts unsettled.
The emails are generated by your previous data on the site so I don’t know about the item recommendations. BMX as a whole is suffering, everyone has stock left over from COVID’s arsehole and we need kids to start a new chapter, it’s too easy to say kids are lazy but how many times has anyone just stayed in because there is so much entertainment in the home nowadays. It’s just a symptom of our social constructs.
I hope so, they’ve done immeasurable damage to the bmx industry, undercutting shops and distro’s by massive margins. Bear in mind they went into administration last year, but it was quietly hidden by the b.o.h weekend.