Unicycle.com are pleased to announce that they have opened a store in China. This allows people in China to get unicycle.com products and services. Payments are taken via AliPay and WeChat Wallet at the website and in the future by Paypal. You can find the store at http://www.unicycle-china.cn/
The store has a wide range of unicycles including, Nimbus, Impact, Kris Holm, Club, Hoppley, Qu-Ax as well as the standard Unicycle.com products.
The expansion of UDC into the Chinese market is of course good news for UDC, but it’s not obvious to me how average consumers benefit from the growth of a monopoly. I wish I had more choices when it comes to buying unicycle parts instead of always having to be at the mercy of a single vendor.
Monopoly? Schmonopoly. Not to sound like a grumpy old man, but be happy you have so much product to choose from, even if from a single vendor.
But it’s not a single vendor, there are many out there to choose from. Best-selling brands like Torker, Miyata, No-Name China, Kris Holm, Mad 4 One, Bedford, The Unicycle Factory and many others can be found online through various websites.
Where on earth do you get the idea that UDC is a monopoly? Have you checked out any of the other suppliers or looked in the internet? If they are the biggest, it’s because they have a good selection at all levels, give friendly advice and good service, and have a nice intuitively named online site, but they are by no means the only place you can buy from.
Well, capitalism leads to monopoly, and monopoly is the economic basis for imperialism. A few mom-and-pop stores still exist, but they are disappearing, and there is no going back. Any country that defies the imperialist order gets regime-changed or destroyed or both.
China does seem to be standing its ground, though, and now the people who live there will have more and better unicycles to choose from! They are building one new subway line per year in Beijing and at least two other cities, they already built a nation-wide high-speed train system a year ahead of schedule, and also, from what I have heard and job listings I have seen, teachers and academics are treated well there and being hired in large numbers- a sharp contrast to the Western world, especially the US, with its decaying infrastructure and crumbling schools.
China also has a strong acrobatics and gymnastics tradition, so there must already be at least a few good unicyclists over there somewhere, and besides, nearly all of our unicycles are made in China, so, sooner or later, Chinese people will start riding, if they haven’t already. I’m actually surprised UDC waited this long to open a store there. Not only does China offer a potentially booming market, it also offers UDC a reduction in transportation costs, since over there all their products are local!
This story reminds me of something I once read about how outsourcing US manufacturing to China would eventually lead to the outsourcing of research and development as well. If almost all unicycles are made in China, isn’t it almost a certainty that a Chinese Kris Holm will eventually emerge, one who doesn’t take five years to fix creaking hubs because he lives just down the street from the factory, or maybe even works there himself?
I haven’t been unicycling for very long, but I somehow doubt that there was ever an era when every community had its local unicycle shop, now cruelly driven out of business by multinationalist capitalism. Local bike shop who would stare at you in disbelief then leaf through ten catalogues and offer you a choice of two models, perhaps.
Oh well, whoever started the franchise will probably do pretty well, whatever that means in the world of unicycle marketing! China, unlike the US, has a growing middle class.
Dubé Juggling sold good UDC unicycles in a little shop in NYC until a few years ago, and as far as I know, its disappearance (except on the Web) was the result of the real estate bubble- itself a product of monopoly capitalism. Banks are bailed out by the government because they are “too big to fail,” so they invest their new money in real estate, driving prices up so high that almost no small business can survive, let alone one that sells unicycles! There are also more than 60,000 homeless people in this city as a result, and I only know of one who rides a unicycle, and that’s only when he runs into me!
Totally with you on this. I would much rather have more choices, and this kind of market domination isn’t good for the customer, and I think in the long run, it’s not even good for the retailer and manufacturer.
The problem is, we’re all part of the problem. It’s like Wal-Mart. Most everyone thinks they’re evil and that they’ve really hurt other retailers and retail diversity. I’ve seen, first-hand, retail businesses in an entire town shut down when a Wal-Mart was built there, but the people from the town keep shopping there and eventually all have to go to work there for a fraction of what they were making before.
You can’t really blame a company for trying to be profitable (although companies like Wal-Mart do really push things ethically, IMO), and as long as consumers buy with no regard to who they’re giving their money to (I’m guilty of this as well), we’ll have what we have.
I believe in corporate responsibility, but in my opinion, the consumer still has a lot of the power, but we rarely exercise it in a way that has long-term benefits.
The problem is unicycles is a tiny market, one that basically no one can get rich from. I think majority of people selling unicycles, even most of the UDC franchises, have other jobs or sell other stuff.
The NZ Unicycle.com which was the third Unicycle.Com franchise after USA and UK has shutdown. The Australian one is a side business of the Australian distributor of Schwalbe Tyres. My guess is many UDCs make little money and that is with a largish worldwide company with a well known name.
Because of this hardly anyone is looking at going it alone. Selling unicycles on your own you have two choices, sell a bunch of stuff (circus things, scooters bicycles etc) or sell only unicycle stuff.
The first option means that hopefully you are able to make enough money from all your different small markets to make enough money to run it as your sole business. But usually this means you have little choice in unicycle products because they take up space and dont sell as much.
The second option means you may have lots of different products but then you are unlikely to make enough money as your sole business.
Hippo Unicycles run by a 3x world champion sold unicycle gear as a side job but even that has slowed down with very little products on the website.
UDC has a name that is known and they have lots of products. Yes its annoying not having real competition but I can see why no one wants to start a competing business on their own.
Most stores that sell a decent amount of unicycle gear still sell a lot of other stuff e.g. CDK in Lyon France.
