I think Yeti needs to step up its carbon offerings. As it stands now, they have exactly one carbon bike (SB95c) that most people looking for a full suss bike (which has too be the vast chunk of the overall market) would consider. ONE... That's not a good place to be if you want to remain competitive.
I'm not really counting the SB66c, as its sales figures are almost non-existent and 26ers are really becoming a dying breed.
SB75 may be a great bike (and it's selling like hotcakes for all I know), but at 7.75lbs frame only, it's a bit of a pig. The frame is actually 1lbs heavier than the 575 that has more travel... We need carbon - yesterday.
I believe in this day and age you need to have every bike - day one, available in both alu and carbon. If you can't do that, then you launch CARBON first. I appreciate that Yeti is a smaller company and development and tooling for two frame materials is expensive, etc. but that's where the market is headed.
While we're at it and speaking of resource allocation, costs, etc. - do we really need THREE versions of both the SB66 (none of which is selling well) and the SB95? I'm not a marketing person (I work on Wall Street) but when I go to Yeti's web page, I see three versions of both the 66 and 95 - they're not even grouped by the bike model... Talk about confusing your customer.
I understand you want to attack every niche in the market but a basic (and simple) strategy of an alu version and carbon version for each bike would serve you better.
I'm writing this because I love Yeti and want them to be successful (which they obviously are). Giving me (and others) more reasons to buy their bikes wouldn't hurt...
I'm not really counting the SB66c, as its sales figures are almost non-existent and 26ers are really becoming a dying breed.
SB75 may be a great bike (and it's selling like hotcakes for all I know), but at 7.75lbs frame only, it's a bit of a pig. The frame is actually 1lbs heavier than the 575 that has more travel... We need carbon - yesterday.
I believe in this day and age you need to have every bike - day one, available in both alu and carbon. If you can't do that, then you launch CARBON first. I appreciate that Yeti is a smaller company and development and tooling for two frame materials is expensive, etc. but that's where the market is headed.
While we're at it and speaking of resource allocation, costs, etc. - do we really need THREE versions of both the SB66 (none of which is selling well) and the SB95? I'm not a marketing person (I work on Wall Street) but when I go to Yeti's web page, I see three versions of both the 66 and 95 - they're not even grouped by the bike model... Talk about confusing your customer.
I understand you want to attack every niche in the market but a basic (and simple) strategy of an alu version and carbon version for each bike would serve you better.
I'm writing this because I love Yeti and want them to be successful (which they obviously are). Giving me (and others) more reasons to buy their bikes wouldn't hurt...