I agree. Our company outsourced production of our products to Asia about 15 years ago. All companies want to maximize their profit margins but there is a limit to what consumers will tolerate. Big US companies no longer take pride in employing US workers, instead they take pride in how they can line their pockets and the pockets of share holders. US CEO's are paid exorbitant salaries for what? So they can run to another company when the one they are running starts loosing money?
The big name bike manufacturers are charging at least 4X the cost for their frames in the retail market. It's just bonkers. Free market economics dictate that if there is another company willing to accept a lower profit margin, that company will bring products into the marketplace. To me I'm seeing a bit of a conspiracy in the bike world, seems all the big name manufactures price their product similarly to their competitors rather than calculating their overhead and reasonable profit margin.
Yes, there is design innovation, testing, warranty, and liability costs that most Asian manufacturers don't have. However, I don't see much design innovation these days, most FS bikes are either DW-Link or Single Pivot. There are minor variations on those two designs with the possible exception of the Niner RDO that has been discussed in another thread on this forum. I've seen videos of Asian companies doing testing, and they offer a similar warranty. I've seen big name carbon frame warranties anywhere from 2 years to Lifetime, however, that is only to the original owner which I say is total BS! Are they warrantying just the purchase or their product? As a long time reader of the forums, I've seen plenty of warranty denials from the big name companies.
That leaves liability, which the Asian suppliers to not need to worry about since they do not have a presence in the US. It would be very difficult to bring a lawsuit against someone like HongFu, while I'm sure Trek has an extensive legal staff.
So in my opinion it comes down to cost and innovation. If the big names continue to sell only slightly better products at 4X the price, they will continue to loose market share to the Chendors
. The big name companies are very lucky that right now the Chendors or only selling frames and not complete bikes. Imagine what would happen if Dick's sporting goods started selling complete Chinese Direct Carbon 29er bikes for $1,500? I'm not seeing it yet but I bet it's not too far off.
