SwiftCarbon’s founder announces local subsidiary’s new direct-to-customer website in their ‘home market’ after his world record breaking ride from Cairo to Cape Town.
Barely off the bike, having ridden 10660km in 38 days, Mark Blewett joked that he’d ridden all the way to Cape Town just to promote SwiftCarbon South Africa’s brand new direct-to-consumer ordering platform. Surely there are less painful ways to draw present the company’s new drive into the SA’s high end bike market! [read more about this epic journey here]
At SwiftCarbon’s Cape Town showroom, Blewett explained the motivations behind the growing company’s move towards creating new channels to a small gathering. “It’s the future of the bike industry – more and more bike firms are starting to move in this direction. It means we can connect more closely with anyone shopping for a great bike, and that we can respond quickly to what they want. Like in our showroom, we can meet them face to face and that means we can send any important feedback directly back to head office.”
The new website offers secure payments, live chat, and a customer will have various groupset, wheel and kit options while speccing their new frame. Even with this degree of customization, the pricing is still highly competitive. “A benchmark bike for us is our Ultravox RS-1 with an Ultegra 11 speed group and that’s a race-ready machine for under R35000 – there are very few bikes of this quality that can compete.”
With the market reeling from the tumbling Rand, many are bracing themselves for a major price hike. Charles Keey, General manager of SwiftCarbon South Africa is confident that the local subsidiary can soften the blow. “I think we’re all still super competitive as former racers, and of course we’ve kept a close eye on competing brands. We have done the maths on it and with the route we’re taking, we are still able to give a customer more for their money without having to sacrifice performance.”
It may be a stretch for some buyers to order a bike online without ever seeing it. Official SwiftCarbon Technical Centres are being appointed to solve those misgivings by making demo bikes available, and with a click-and-collect service, they’re also conducting final assemblies and checks. Marc Carr, head of technical says, “When you’re spending R25k plus on a bike, you want to touch and feel what you’re getting, and here you can actually try one out. I reckon a lot of people will go for the click-and-collect – then they can be confident that the bike’s properly adjusted and ready to race.’
Blewett is confident that his eight-year-old enterprise will still be able to contend with the major players. “The industry is headed for a shakeup for sure and that suits us! We have already proved that we can mix it up and even beat the big brands at their own game – we’ve had some brilliant reviews. And even though many of the bigger brands have better buying power, we’re a lean company so with the right setup we can offer buyers world beating bikes at awesome value.”
Check out their opening specials at www.swiftcarbon.com/za like the Attack road bike with 105 11 speed for R19,995 and DVore mountain bike with XTR 2×10 for R34,900.
This is great. My next bike will certainly be a Swift Carbon