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news
Halfords logoHalfords sees kids' bike sales plummet
Britain's biggest bike retailer Halfords has suffered poor sales of children’s bikes in the run-up to Christmas which in turn has dented its profit forecast.
A combination of the coldest December on record and a seemingly less active pre- and early-teen population who prefer computer gaming to cycling conspired to depress the market at what is traditionally a bumper time for the sale of children’s bikes.
David Wild, Halfords' chief executive, told the Telegraph that pre-Christmas bicycle sales were down 16% compared to the same period in 2009: "Cycling was a disappointment. Children's cycles were not the Christmas gift that anyone expected them to be."
Wild also cited the changes to the Cycle to Work scheme as another factor which hit sales in the last quarter of 2010, particularly sales of high end bikes where the savings offered have previously made well-specified machines more tempting.
The poor December weather wasn’t all bad news for Halfords, however, as sales of automotive consumables such as wiper blades, bulbs and batteries were up 29% compared to the last quarter of ’09.
As for the coming year, Mr Wild said: "It's a very uncertain environment. Customers are feeling very nervous with VAT rising and the public spending cuts."
With a prediction that Halfords profits will be at the lower end of an expected £127m to £135m range, the company’s shares fell 15 to 405p.
Latest Comments
- Hirsute 3 sec ago
"Collisions with bus shelters normally happen when van drivers pull onto the pavement to let a blue lights vehicle pass, and forget to allow for...
- check12 1 hour 18 min ago
200 people out of a close by population of how many? Just build it and stop being a wuss
- Spangly Shiny 2 hours 51 min ago
To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "Build it right and they will come: and use it!"
- Rendel Harris 5 hours 12 min ago
And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!
- Rendel Harris 6 hours 12 sec ago
The odds of not being able to find a single pedestrian - just one, note, "any pedestrian" - in an area containing more than about ten of them who...
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I love how wannabe racer reviewers talk about fork flex under braking like their tyres are made of glue. I find traction gives long before fork flex.
- hawkinspeter 8 hours 46 min ago
They don't make them like they used to
- LongitudeLatitude 9 hours 36 min ago
Thanks for using my picture of chocolate in your opening picture. The original can be found here, chocolate! | LongitudeLatitude | Flickr.
- lesterama 10 hours 3 min ago
Fair comments. I'll put my hands up and say I got the wrong end of the stick with this one. ¡Feliz navidad! Here's a pic for the season of goodwill.
- Mike Holmes 10 hours 8 min ago
A trip down memory lane (or street) for me - Harry Quinn's bike shop was at the top of our Street and I used to spend time staring at the bikes and...
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5 comments
A big upswing in kids on the boards where there are velodromes, never seen as many but their bikes are not coming from Halfords, they have obviously missed the boat.
Or maybe it's because they made a lot of experienced salesmen, like me, redundant last spring/summer or did they get it right "letting us go" having seen the downturn coming in their crystal ball. In any event a big thank you from me I am enjoying my early retirement getting the miles in.:)
I'm going to try and be optimistic and say maybe the parents have been taking their kids down to the local bike shop instead... maybe.... just maybe....
I'm not sure children are any more "screen-happy" now than they were a year ago. So I doubt a 16% drop in sales compared to 2009 can be attributed to that, any more than other long term trends like safety-paranoid parents being persuaded by the helmet brigade that cycling is a dangerous activity. Halfords' cycle business getting squeezed by supermarkets at the low end, and recent converts to cycling getting wise to better options on the high end, would be my guess.
Snow would definitely have been a factor, but I am getting sick of hearing big retail corporations piss and moan about it, because profits might be down a fraction, but still hundreds millions (or in the case of another recent complainer, Tesco, billions) of pounds. Why don't they stop their tax avoidance, and stop lobbying against local business rates, then maybe councils would have enough money to grit all the roads? Otherwise it sounds like they are trying to make the case that the roads to and from their out-of-town stores should be prioritised, which would make things even worse for cyclists than they already are during icy periods.
I thought it might be down to their shocking wrenching abilities and questionable customer service, but there you go.