HEAD, market leaders in several premium sporting brands, have brought their highly rated bicycles to South African consumers with the first consignment hitting local shores last week.<\/p>\n
The European-based company have long been established as a leading brand – particularly in tennis, snow skiing and squash – and brand loyalty among their customers has seen their bike sales escalate rapidly.<\/p>\n
After introducing their bicycle range to the European market in 2012, they have expanded their operations to 23 countries before granting four additional distribution licences – including South Africa – this year.<\/p>\n
HEAD Bikes SA (PTY) Ltd, who will offer a full range of road and mountain bikes, will retail their products using the same online model as their sister companies.<\/p>\n
“We can source any model from Europe and will aim to have it delivered in record time,” said a South African representative of the company.<\/p>\n
He said their business model, based on e-commerce, allowed them to offer a premium brand at highly competitive prices.<\/p>\n
“We don’t rent shop space and cut down on related overheads, which means we can offer high-spec bikes at good prices.”<\/p>\n
Customers can place their orders by following the website link on the HEAD Bikes SA Facebook page or by using the e-mail option.<\/p>\n
“The bike will be delivered directly to the client or to a cycle shop of their choice for assembly,” he explained.<\/p>\n
“Research found that no matter what the brand is, customers always take their bikes to their preferred shop or favourite mechanic for maintenance and service.”<\/p>\n
He said demo models would also be available for customers who wanted a test ride before making their decision.<\/p>\n
“If they are happy with the demo bike they can buy it, but, if they want a different model, we will send it and the demo will be couriered back to us.”<\/p>\n
The spokesperson added that a system for after-sales service had already been set up.<\/p>\n
“The guarantees and warranties will be handled by the brand manager. Bikes will undergo the normal assessment process and we will aim to please and replace in record time.”<\/p>\n
HEAD Bikes SA were established after almost a year of negotiation with the parent company and the sole distribution agreement was signed in August.<\/p>\n
According to the local representative, they expected a big demand because research had shown that there was strong brand loyalty among HEAD customers.<\/p>\n
“We have already had great feedback from potential customers who own other HEAD sports equipment.”<\/p>\n
He added that the parent company felt there was significant potential in the South African market.<\/p>\n
“Online sales have been increasing 30 per cent year on year, so we believe that is the way of shopping of the future.<\/p>\n
“Furthermore, they only manufacture a certain number of premium bikes each year and the fact that they have allocated a number of these for distribution in South Africa is an indication of their confidence in this market.”<\/p>\n
In 2012, Novak Djokovic (Australian Open), Maria Sharapova (French Open) and Andy Murray (US Open) won tennis grand slam titles using HEAD equipment.<\/p>\n
They are also behind HEAD Pro, a Czechoslovakian UCI mountain bike outfit, and the HEAD Ciclo team in Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HEAD, market leaders in several premium sporting brands, have brought their highly rated bicycles to South African consumers with the first consignment hitting local shores last week. The European-based company have long been established as a leading brand – particularly in tennis, snow skiing and squash – and brand loyalty among their customers has seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3115,3116,3117,3114,3113,1944,1757],"class_list":["post-14451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-bicycles","tag-head","tag-head-bicycles","tag-head-bikes-sa-pty-ltd","tag-head-sports-equipment","tag-mountain-bike","tag-mountain-biking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}