Brompton bikes were first invented in 1975. Their story is one of supply & demand. From high demand and little competition to market saturation. It is a lesson in retail economics for all of us.
Brompton is known as an innovator in the world of cycling. The brand that developed an urban bike that commuters could take with them easily on trains, from their homes to their places of work, it revolutionised cycling and made it popular and beneficial to a whole new range of customers.
What Brompton did, almost uniquely, was that it created a new market. It created a new demand because it supplied something that hadn’t been seen before.
Brompton flourished by cycling around the usual barriers to success presented by the existing balance of Supply & Demand in an already saturated market.
Now, it seems Brompton has been absorbed into the real world of supply & demand. Firstly, soon after its introduction came competitors quickly filling the vacuum of an unexploited market.
And then, after a Covid fueled few years when it seemed everybody went cycling, and everyone creating and selling bikes flocked to join the selling feast, the total cycle sector has been plunged into turmoil with a market totally saturated by over-supply.
In these unusual few years, we can see how any brand in any market is at the mercy of the balance of Supply & Demand. It is a case study that we would all do well to study.
It shows that it is not the size of a market that will dictate your success or failure. It is its saturation. The balance of supply & demand.
It also shows that to survive in a saturated market you have to be ‘essential’ to your customer. Retailers and brands must work hard to be noticed, even harder to be profitable, and harder still to be “essential.”
This has been a hard-lesson for Brompton. But it is still a highly desirable brand, still innovating and still an essential in its sector of the market.
It may well have seen the supply and demand problems on the horizon through its direct sales, but it had to live with the necessary complexity of a broad supply network, that evidently ordered for a permanent increase in demand was was never realistic.
It illustrates to us that ‘no retail brand is an island.’ To a certain extent we are all at the mercy of those around us that together create the market and supply & demand balance.
And what the supply & demand balance always teaches us in any specific market is simply – “How good do we need to be?”
We always need to ask and anticipate. We always need to know “What functionality and integration is required to be on top of the retail evolution curve?” “What levels of expertise and delivery are needed to stay ahead of the competition?” “What degree of emotional sophistication is essential to satisfy the customer?” “What level of Essential relationship is a must?”
“How do we make ourselves essential to our customers, now?
Brompton is an exceptional brand. It continues to innovate and get better. It continues to make itself essential.
I have no doubt it will be more than good enough even in these difficult times, and will flourish once again when the market supply reverts to a more sensible level of saturation.
Or perhaps, it might even invent another totally new market for itself. Who knows?