User:Alanbike/sandbox

Supergo Bike Shops was a chain of retail bicycle shops headquartered in Santa Monica, California by Alan M. Goldsmith, a practicing Calif attorney who loved bicycles more than law. Supergo operated from 1971 to 2005. Its low prices, large scale, and heavy advertising was controversial in the tradition-bound bicycle industry during its entire existence. Today discounting, internet, and private label are the lifeblood of retailing. Supergo was the first bicycle retailer to sell through large, color mail order catalogs and in 1997, it was the first to add on-line sales. Prices were purposely below MSRP with frequent extravagant sales events. Supergo shops were highly differentiated from typical bike shops in several ways. Supergo shops were very large and displayed merchandise on exclusive bike-specific fixtures designed by Goldsmith. These eventually were adopted by bike shops world-wide. Shop size ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 and had average sales of an unheard of $6 million each. The Santa Monica shop remained USA's top grossing bike shop from 1995 to 2003. Total company volume in 2002 reached $45million. Supergo created several other "firsts." Its merchandising was thoroughly integrated with the mail order and internet operations making it together with private label goods, the bike industry's first vertically integrated and multi-channel retailer. Private label products mostly designed by Goldsmith, featured the company's "trademark" high tech and low price promise. Goldsmith was a student of "Retailing as Theater" and established the business as a perpetual source of special deals and promotions that resulted in customers queuing up before the shops opened. Supergo was USA's top retailer for several brands during one or many years, including: Specialized, Gary Fisher, Cannondale, Giant, Cinelli, and Klein. Supergo and Goldsmith were the subjects of numerous industry trade and consumer publications including Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, Bicycle Dealer Showcase , Mountain Bike Action Magazine , Mountain Bici, and others. The Company's original name Bikecology Bike Shops was changed to Supergo in 1982 after a conflict with a licensee shop. Goldsmith, the founder and sole shareholder sold the company to Apax Partners, LLC, a New York private equity, which already owned Supergo's larger competitor, Performance Bike Shops. After failing to maintain the sales and other elements of Supergo, it was rebranded as Performance in 2005. Goldsmith went on to work for Specialized Bicycle, creating its factory concept shops operation which now supports shops world-wide.