Off Road Bikes Online (ORBO)

russthedog

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Hey burners, some of you have already seen this but I wanted to introduce Off Road Bikes Online (ORBO), a new player in the Australian bike industry. Oh and thanks to @Tubbsy for letting me post this up.
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ORBO is dedicated to off road cycling like you lot, we are a group of enthusiasts who provide products and solutions to other cyclists - and this dedication is what lead us to create an online store dedicated to MTB as well as gravel and cyclocross. Our knowledge and experience will be used to bring you a carefully selected, small range of products and solutions in the store. We take time to carefully choose our small product range and only add products we use and love. But because we know that mountain bike, gravel and cyclocross are different we have created different collections so you can browse by your interest. We will be bringing a few more brands online over the next couple of months so keep checking it out.

The first major brand we've got is Revel Bikes, which we are pumped to be able to bring to Australia. They ride amazing, and we have demos and rentals available. They're doing the media rounds of the country as well so you should start seeing them a bit more. The majority are frames only but we can do build kits - just hit us up.
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Oh yeah and we have the most bespoke waffles in cycling too :)
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If you see anything out there that you want us to bring in, get in touch - burners are a discerning bunch!

The ORBO team already have experience in the cycling industry, with some of our founders responsible for starting Link Sports. And whilst the focus may be new you can expect us to continue to deliver for the off road experience. Braap!

Any questions - hit us up on the site for a fast answer, or on here for a slower one....

https://offroadbikesonline.com.au/

Cheers fam
 

Jpez

Down on the left!
So are we gonna get a ‘bespoke waffle’ in every order like MTBD used to chuck in lollies?
 

Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
Nice! Those Revel bikes look soooo good. I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of the CBF suspension system.

The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is the Forbidden Druid.

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
 

beeb

Dr. Beebenson, PhD HA, ST, Offset (hons)
Nice! Those Revel bikes look soooo good. I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of the CBF suspension system.

The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is the Forbidden Druid.

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
...and the Deviate Highlander.
 

Jpez

Down on the left!
You planning on cutting half your forearms off? :p
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Oh! One of the sexiest bikes to ever pass my eyeballs and it’s made for midgets! The only carbon bike to to ever give me a proper bike boner too:(

edit: think you might be looking at the last model Carbonjack 27.5.? The new 2020 29er in xl says a very reasonable 510 reach.
 

beeb

Dr. Beebenson, PhD HA, ST, Offset (hons)
Oh! One of the sexiest bikes to ever pass my eyeballs and it’s made for midgets! The only carbon bike to to ever give me a proper bike boner too:(

edit: think you might be looking at the last model Carbonjack 27.5.? The new 2020 29er in xl says a very reasonable 510 reach.
Ah, indeed I was - sorry to kill the moment for you! :oops:
 

Mattyp

Cows go boing
Tough market to break into especially with so many well established online stores both locally and internationally all at the click of a mouse. I regularly check 5 or 6 websites before i order something and am happy to wait 3-4 weeks for a set of brakes if it means i get them for less than half the price locally.
Will add this one to the price check list.
 

Nerf Herder

Wheel size expert
Tough market to break into especially with so many well established online stores both locally and internationally all at the click of a mouse. I regularly check 5 or 6 websites before i order something and am happy to wait 3-4 weeks for a set of brakes if it means i get them for less than half the price locally.
Will add this one to the price check list.
Gonna be real honest. You aren’t the target market. Absolutely no offence, we completely get it ... Similarly we aren’t on the discount path, or on the ‘you can get it anywhere path’ ... it would be real easy to load up ORBO with our Link stuff and just gut pricing ... but that’s not sustainable for us, our customers, or our suppliers and to be honest that’s never been how Link

Some shizzle We’ve picked up over 10years of Pushie/Link.

Not all suppliers want to push volume ... lots do but not all
Not all suppliers want to sell online
Not all suppliers want distributors to sell direct or online ... and they will punish you
Similarly on the flip side.
There are heaps of brands that are fracking awesome, but they are just too small or just can’t offer two levels of pricing. Or the logistics is just fracking crazy.
There are heaps of brands that just want volume and think online direct is the way forward
There are heaps of Consumer direct brands that can and will benefit from a solid customer focused and operationally savvy local partner
Australia is such fracking a small market fracking ‘agents’ have to work fucking stupidly hard and take on ridiculously large amounts of risk to secure supply.

Similarly
Many suppliers really understand and value the support that retailers offer
Many Suppliers, just don’t give a shit about Australia and our small pissant market and can’t or more likely WONT offer competitive pricing to allow two layers let alone 1 layer of pricing ... @Sethius has comments on this before.
Many distributors will sink themselves to secure an agreement, order way way too much, need to put on expensive sales force ... then create a downward spiral of ironically high prices, then discounting, then under supply key models, then new distributors. And so on. I’ll guarantee every ‘agent‘ has 2 to 5 of these depending on business size. 100% agree the consumer and even retailers will give zero fucks, but think what this does from a bigger picture, longer term view.

For those that are familiar with my personal story (ie, I was you, I never bought locally, never understood the value of a good LBS or even a good local business, thought one shitty LBS experience was 100% indicative of all LBS ... it was 100% price driven). Have learnt a lot in 10years since starting up Pushie/Link.

Have learnt that there are some really awesome people and businesses in this Industry both locally and globally. People I would do a lot for, which I could never say in other industries I’ve worked in.
Have learnt that money, although important, isn’t the key driver for all. COVID was only reenforced many of my left leaning, huggy, feely biases.

Anyway, will be interesting to see what happens. Sam and I have been thinking about this pretty much since we started business together. We headed off launching an onliner for a long long time because we were scared we would alienate retailers. Similarly, we knew we couldn’t compete with the established players, on range or price. But hopefully you can see a little bit about the reasons why.

ultimately, we like good shizzle, we like working with awesome people and suppliers regardless of model, Link has always tried to offer the best and most honest service/communication to both consumers and retailers alike. We make mistakes and fuck up, but service is about communication and solution planning ... so to us ... ORBO was just a natural extension of LINK and the way we do business. It’s allowed us to add another team member, add a couple of local and international suppliers including Revel, the waffle lady, 81, Shimano, Sola et al to come. So keen to will see what happens.

Shame 95% of you aren’t our target market lololololz.

edit ... soz for the novel ... I’m procrastinating. Fuck it.
 
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