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welcome around the workst Susie you're the best we're here I cannot believe that uh I guess well I just got to see your beautiful faces in person and then I took a week off vacation so it feels like it was yesterday where did you go I was in the Durango area we hanging out with Cody my man friend's family I assume you brought your mountain bike I did I brought my My Salsa my horse thief nice um yeah then we went to horse Gulch so it was just like horses horses so many horses yeah yeah it was great seeing everybody in person it was so I guess what were we why were we in person maybe we should give a little background oh yeah so since we went 100% remote last year we still like culture is so important here so we try to pull people together at a department level we do these Department Summits and we had about a almost half of the company fly in because everybody and client uh Services which is our support team our business development team and our catalog team everybody all together all the leaders flew in um and we spent um what three or four days together it was great it was great yeah did you guys any big I don't know big takeaways what did you kind of walk away with the week from from the week with Mark you go first you were there the whole time well I think the most important thing I I am not a a game playing person I don't care for games but Rod Goodman from the client success team yes came up with this old I'm a kid from Chicago game where you put a rock in between two lines on the sidewalk and you take a ball and you bounce it and try and knock the rock across the other person's line that was more fun than I've had a long time so that was exciting that was wild I played the Scandinavian I can't remember which country Scandinavian version of of Bachi ball Cube it looks like Cube but we say it Cube there was a big crowd play in that game like that was popular that was a good time um rough it pretty much just like throwing wood at wood um so good time I got we I I was in the most competitive wle Ball Match of my life it was fantastic int we've got a very competitive team yeah you guys you guys uh took out some weather I'd be I'd be worried about like slipping and I'm not very coordinated yeah we played through the rain like we we could not walk away it was intense no there you guys were committed yeah and there was a dog playing there was Atlas P unless it sound like all we did was play games we did spend a lot of time in a conference room working on things and I think that's always good because as tight as we seen in a given day and how much communication there is it it's it's easy to drift and not know exactly what's going on across teams and Susie and I both tend to spend a lot of time in different teams so it's always good to get folks together but um we learned an awful lot about um where the the point of sale is at this point where it's going to be here shortly what our goals around that are and how we're doing with adoption already so that was exciting to be in the same place and I appreciate Alex coming he traveled a long way a product what's Alex's official product owner yeah kind of really drives what is all of the software going to be you know he's always he's not unlike a lot of folks like that that could be too serious he's very serious about his job he does not take himself seriously and that makes him a lot of fun in these role playing sessions where we're all using the POS and trying to get used to it so that was a lot of fun he escorted he was he escorted Atlas the real star of the show sweet doggy um but yeah learned a lot I think it was really nice hearing from our client success team and our catalog team and kind of how so many pieces come together um to to do what we do and uh I think offer the services that are kind of unmatched by other competitors yeah yeah I think my big takeaway was just how aligned the team is like I mean obviously great collection of characters wonderful parts of our whole culture but the fact that they get the business at the high level and they can connect it to the work that they do um is really satisfying as a as an owner do you want to touch on a couple of things that have happened in the last month yeah let's look back uh earlier this week Tre announced the expansion of their direct consumer program so I think it's been since 2016 that they've been selling direct consumer um but fulfillment was always through bike shops and now they're going to they have a kind of a balanced program that you know a consumer can still take advantage of the bike shop uh the bike shop can do home delivery or the bike can be shipped kind of ready to assemble to the consumer directly so I think it's kind of an expected Evolution I don't think anybody was really surprised by it um but at the same time I think that it it appears to have caused some worry for dealers I think the things I've noticed in the brain comments are you know smaller markets in particular or you know worry about what it does for taking away high-end bike sales from the shops um and all are legitimate worries but you know the industry's been headed this direction in a long time and a company like Tre that has a pretty balanced uh distribution plan and then the program seems pretty pretty well thought out um so even though you know maybe it's not as favorable of um margins as if a dealer were to sell directly um still favorable enough to make sure they're participating uh in the transactions meaningfully yeah yeah do you have a um ba based on they're not the first ones to bring this to our industry based on what we've seen and the the trajectory that you've observed over the years do you have a I don't know not a prediction we don't want to get in the business of predicting but you know do you think that's it's a move that'll stick and will that possibly prompt others you know once a trek does something it kind of makes it acceptable or you know not the end of the world So Others May Come Along yeah I think that you know my like specializ has been doing it for a year or maybe two now um and it's had I mean I think any specialized dealer would say that it's been there's been some pros and cons um you know I think track entering you're right you know it may reduce barriers for others um you know I think I take giant at their word that they you know don't intend to do that that they're really you know committed to the the IBD Channel as their exclusive outlet but then beyond that I think there's a lot of mystery more around timeline um because it's not logistically easy to do um I think there's liability concerns for for manufacturers and so it may still take time um but I think it's going to you're going to be hardpressed to find a major bik brand that isn't shipping direct consumer in five years you know if we if we just go off of um I don't know the complaints because I I spend a lot of time most of my time talking to our clients and potential clients and so I end up hearing a lot of the things that bother them and that are working well more of the things that bother them often I almost never hear of complaints about what specialized has done and is doing um but I you know I do hear the positives from um the program from giant you we hear a lot of people talking about web link we we do even when we don't provide the websites we provide the technology so we set up a lot of those free accounts that allow them to report their inv T Giant and that's unusual to hear so many positive stories usually you only hear the complaints so on two counts I don't hear a lot of complaints about what specialized does and I do hear a lot of positives on the web link giant web link program you know I wonder if some hybrid of that what that Tre tries to do where they're trying to cover all the bases might might not be the end of the world I think that well it it certainly won't be the end of the world and I think back to your question of is it going to pass no I think the the consumer has changed and it's not all or nothing I like to avoid that whenever possible but some percentage of consumers are going to want to buy direct from the manufacturers they feel that they're capable enough to assemble a bike themselves so as a brand you you can't just yield that buyer to somebody like a canyon um you know because then you know every brand is very focused on market share and you you can't give it up but then also I think from a sustainability of their business piece um you know there's a big push especially amongst the large suppliers to diversify their distribution and ibds are still the you know the the path for the vast majority of their sales um but you know they're positioning themselves for the market 10 years from now you know and that's I mean that I think we said this in the last meeting but like bike shops are in the direct consumer business too and so we've been talking about this for years is that you know the consumer buying habits are changing and bike shops can participate in that and so I certainly encourage dealers to kind of accept the thing accept that business is always changing market conditions are always changing how do you develop a strategy to succeed in that changing environment uh and I think that that's what we you know I think that's what we can deliver and you know shch just put out their 2025 retailer Playbook I think think they might but it's you know they have their top seven things that they think a great Bike Shop should do and one of them is to have a great digital strategy and um I think it's more important than ever and I think that's where we fit in I think you know from both the technology and a marketing standpoint like workstand is a bike shops digital strategy um so I feel really good about how we can position our clients yeah yeah absolutely I have a very important note to add to I have a cat sleeping in a dog bed at my feet and he's snoring cat sleeping in a dog bed that's the sign of the Apocalypse isn't it move move the mic down there I want to hear this oh yeah you know the other thing that you know uh obviously we're in the we're recording this in the first I guess the second week of July and so that's you know we've got all of June's you know platform results in and um so I think that's worth noting you know I think you know looking at kind of platform as a whole results you know which is the huge diverse range of our clients you know we were roughly flat we were up about 1% which is the the lowest month over or year-over-year growth rate of any month this year um I think that both speaks to last summer was relatively strong the summer is performing relatively equally um but that flat number is you know in large part or in part driven by strong Google advertisers and a lot of bike sales um and so if you look at the kind aftermarket space or or really if you look at that typical dealer that we like to you know kind of measure ourself off of unfortunately the typical dealer was down 8% in um June which is you know good relative to how some of the earlier months in the year worked but I still don't like to see dealers down uh that much uh and you know kind of a thing that we've noticed in comparing our results to the people for bikes and shirana overall Market data that comes out you know two months after the fact is that typical dealer performance is pretty close to the overall IBD market and so that's not great that after a pretty solid May um you know June was June was lackluster um so I'm sure our clients see that and and probably are as worried about it as I am um we've talked about this before but I really hoped that the bike Market had hit its bottom and it still feels like we're looking for it um the end is more in sight than it's ever been um but that everybody would have relished a really strong summer um and so even though site visits you know are are still you know significantly up consumers are shopping uh you know order volume's down uh average order value is up those bike purchases are really um uh driving up average order value uh with a high percentage being sold at discount so that's really kind of what's leading to that relatively flat performance um but I think something that our customers really like or the vast majority of our customers is that click and collect business and uh June was really strong for click and collect um you know over 40% of orders were picked up in the store that's roughly at 2019 levels it's obviously down from the co highs of of 60% um but it is a sign that the typical dealers getting a lot of foot traffic in their store off of online orders and that's huge every dealer wants that traffic so they can you know build more of a connection with the customer and and get some upselling opportunities yeah I am eternally optimistic in general but so not to just go in looking for the positives but that average order value being up and when we're talking about a platform like ours and that's e-commerce sales back to that topic of the changing consumer and some just want to buy that way and some will just want to buy from the brand they'll want to avoid a local business altogether but not all of them and I think that data that average order rout being up and knowing that's bikes coming through websites should be a pretty strong indicator that if a store's not investing in that technology that we provide or some other way they're missing something they could capture it's not it's not like it's Out Of Reach I think that is such a good point mark I think that I think too many businesses see it see online sales as lost sales and that just like that is just not the right way to look at it like there's no reason you can't participate in those sales and if you don't you know that those lost sales I mean let say you see a a loss of one to 3 to 5% a year like what are you going to do to make that up I I I I'm with you Mark I like I'm very optimistic for the long term I think it's just still working our way through these this pain that we have and um from an inventory standpoint and you know a recent opinion piece in brain really talked about how ridership is really strong um even though sales are flat and uh I can't remember they spoke to the concept of some demand being pulled forward but you know the Market's really there search volume's really high um it's really just you know getting getting consumer spending or purchasing lined up with inventory again yeah absolutely and I think like one of my big tickes ways from our Summit a couple weeks ago too is helping guide retailers to take in more active role in creating those selling opportunities like I'm going to go ahead and oversimplify but who cares where the sale is coming from it's a sale that's now your customer that's now someone that you can build a relationship with more easily like we always talk about acquiring new customers is can be costly you know reaching new people but like getting to know them in the first place but once you have them there are so many tools and strategies techniques in place that our team really excels at you know another way of kind of you know boosting all the good work that we do but but really like there's just there's it's easier to get them to come back once you've got them yeah and and yes but and but also your cost of customer acquisition is lower if the destination is your website yeah absolutely but if you're if if you're trying to Market to get foot traffic that that's harder than ever before um and and so get them to your website capture a portion of the sales get 40% of those people coming into the store and that's a nice complement to the other marketing work you're doing you know in order to drive that foot traffic um so we definitely want to see more of that yeah it's competitive out there I think this is really it's the time I mean I think we're kind of taking this standpoint on our own as well like it's a time to experiment try different ways of reaching people try different messaging try some different tactics there's lots of inexpensive marketing tools out there yeah so you know I don't have the numbers in front of me Susie but you you talked about kind of bikes being sold online and and the percentage of ebikes being sold online both in the overall data and on our platform is higher than other categories and so you know I think that a lot of the brands out a lot of the directing consumer brands have really normalized that that purchasing um so that's an area where you know any bike shop should want to participate because it's the fastest growing category it's very competitive online and the consumer is willing to buy online um so get into that space versus just kind of giving up the business yeah yeah absolutely that ebike buyer goes back we're talking about that I don't remember when but a lot lately and that they're they're more the typical retail Shopper than are the historically typical Bike Shop Shopper so Meeting those folks where they want to be becomes really important because they will they will just buy through those channels they don't think about everybody complains about discounting the historical bike buyer wants a discount these buyers are just shopping like they do everywhere else which means less discounting ultimately so I think it's a big opportunity absolutely yeah agreed what else I mean um Ryan before you met us in Gun Barrel in Boulder you want you want to talk about what you're doing before then yeah I spent the I spent the previous week week up in Canada um I went to a big technology conference called Collision uh which is fascinating it was a it was a lot of startups it was a lot of um Venture Capital firms uh a lot of you know established technology companies um and so a lot of of educational opportunities a lot of booths to go visit uh and really eye openening for me about the the impact that AI is going to be having on you know the all of our lives but you know business in particular you know it's been a a challenging one for me to get my head wrapped around but once you walk around you know from Booth to Booth to booth and you see how it's being implemented in so many different business cases it started to be more clear um kind of what role it's going to play over the next couple of years but the one that really stood out to me in impacting our clients right away is is the impact of of what they call zero click search results and so as more AI has been brought into Google consumers are getting more answers without having to click through to a website and you know so that is kind of problematic for certain aspects of the traditional SEO business where you're trying to you know win search traffic for things like the best mountain bike or you know uh you know what what ebikes can I ride on trails near me um so you're going to have dealers are going to have a hard time pulling in that traffic um and so it kind of comes back to something we've been talking about for a while which is product searches like you're going to have so much I guess the two areas to focus on are going to be product searches how do you make sure that consumer searching for a floor pump they see yours and then location or near me searches those are the areas that AI can't really touch um and so those are you know if if I'm a dealer I'm wanting to shift you know some of my marketing or more of my marketing to towards those areas uh because I'm just going to have a harder time getting consumers to come in for like what we call Rich content Pages you know a lot of our focus on Rich content is on more seasonal or you know things that you know can kind of be a link destination for an email and then uh you you change it out for something else because obviously Google likes fresh content um but those kind of kind of pages that are more educational just are going to be less important that's not unlike the trend we've seen I mean 10 years ago as a company we we wrote and built content completely differently yeah um than today so may maybe a different unexpected Evolution we wouldn't have seen coming 10 years ago but just another Evolution we need to pay attention to and how we Market our businesses yeah but maybe and I you know um our our monthly marketing content are like what we we we call more internally like our library content maybe some of that seasonal stuff that you're talking about every month our agency teams puts together you know three to five different um seasonal marketing assets I wonder if that's going to become more and more valuable it's a little bit it's it's it's a little bit simpler it's a very product focused I I think it will be I think well you mentioned active earlier I I think that the the dealers who choose to take an active marketing stance which means I'm I'm going to send out emails I'm going to be active on social media our content seasonally relevant great link destination for those emails great way to get um a consumer who's already visiting your site into a shopping mode um so a lot of value to those pieces um and I don't mean to minimize you know uh pages that are evergreen like a you know how to pick a kids bike or uh understanding U that the three classes of electric bikes you know you've got a lot of traffic coming into your site and so those pages still have a lot of value in terms of informing your customers and being link destinations for your marketing they're just not going to pull in those organic search results the way they used to yeah yeah still a great resource might be not a very measurable we saw you know the performance of some of those more educational pages but still like I think it's a great resource and yeah yeah I think a shop having kind of a um a website that's not so deep and complex that it ends up being stale but enough content to take your typical buyer and bring them a little further along so that when they come into the store um you know it's a faster sales process Excell absolutely what's the next Ry you got more travels or you stay in put for a while you know I am doing a market visit uh in Minneapolis in two or three weeks and then I think we have the agency Summit September Susie do you remember is that August September that October Jesus yeah but I'm I'm I'm working on lining up a couple of other Market visits um uh you know I want to get out there a little bit more and and and get connected with some dealers that we don't work with I want to better understand what their business needs are and what we can do to um you know potentially kind of earn their business over time uh visit some established clients you know celebrate some of their successes see if I can help them strategically uh so I'll probably be spending a week in market and I'm right now looking to see kind of which of the Southern markets is going to be slowest for dealers so they have time for a knucklehead like me to walk in southern dealers do you need a a translator and somebody to help you with the local Customs it probably wouldn't hurt I could join you um tell them I'm sure you could tell them building walty [Laughter] walty my favorites well that sounds really fun um I there's some retailers I would love to visit in the Minneapolis area and then do a little trip I'd like to ride my bike there more I only Road around there once or twice throw some fun stuff and then I really want to go up to duth and and mountain bikes so much fun H great trails Great environment yeah I've only been there in the winter um I'm from the Midwest and I grew up ski racing and uh there was always um well uh I don't know there's some there's some kind of like I guess if you grew up in the midwest there's some famous notorious ski resorts places in Minnesota especially up in Deluth and Len so anyone that's from the area knows there some good stories out of that place I I have a loton story that so back in the olden times when I was racing mountain bikes in the 9s um there were these Regional race SE series and there was there was one up in um at Lucen but this was pre- internet and so you just had to you know look at flyers and bike shops in order to know what was what was happening uh well I misread the flyer and so I drove up on a Saturday expecting to race on Sunday and I rolled in as they were tearing down the race course because it had been uh the race on Saturday it was an eight hour drive it was a that was a bitter pill did you at least go ride your bike Rod rode my bike and and and that was a road trip trip I did with Kent mcneel who now runs uh imba and so it always gives us something to to laugh about when we get together that is funny well this was great thank you all for getting together yeah um yeah I guess until we we'll we'll join back next month and kind of look back at July hopefully some some good takeaways and until then we'll we'll see you around the workst