Direct-to-consumer vs the shop: who really wins

In 2020, as Italy pedaled out of lockdown, the pandemic bike boom pushed sales to 2.01 million units (+17%), and with it came a wager that part of the industry was happy to make: skip the shop network and sell straight to the rider online. Direct-to-consumer bike sales looked like the future. Five years on, the numbers tell a different story — and the operators still standing are, overwhelmingly, the ones with a workshop behind the counter.

The rise: a boom that flattered D2C

The direct-to-consumer pitch was simple: cut out the dealer network, compress the retail margin, sell online at an aggressive price. During the Covid peak, demand was strong enough to paper over almost any logistical inefficiency. But that boom was fueled by a one-off combination — restricted mobility, purchase incentives, forced free time — not by a genuinely better distribution model. It only took demand returning to normal for the cracks in D2C to show.

And demand did return to earth, faster than many expected: -10% in 2022 (1.7 million units), -23% in 2023 (1.36 million), down to 1.303 million in 2025 (-4%). The Italian industry's total turnover fell from €3.2 billion in 2022 to roughly €2.5 billion in 2025. Margins compressed just as sharply, from 7.6% in 2021 to 3.2% in 2023 — a collapse that hit hardest the operators selling product alone, with no other revenue stream to fall back on.

The weak spot: overstock and no service to sell

D2C has a structural flaw the boom had been hiding: it lives on product sales alone, which makes it the first to bleed when demand slows or the supply chain seizes up. In 2022, roughly 40% of products ordered across the industry were never delivered, with component lead times stretching to 340-700 days — in some cases nearly two years. Retailers who had bet everything on online sales were left holding unfulfilled orders and stock that arrived too late to sell, with no alternative revenue to absorb the hit.

This is where the physical shop with a workshop attached proved structurally, not just sentimentally, superior. In Italy, service now accounts for up to 60-90% of specialist shops' revenue and roughly 70% of net profit — a figure the trade openly discusses in 2026, noting that without the workshop's contribution, many shops would be underwater. Ninety-five percent of Italy's roughly 4,000 bike retailers offer repair services, which tells you the market worked this out long before the D2C bust did: service isn't a side activity, it's the shop's actual cash register.

Why the workshop is the defense D2C doesn't have

D2C can compete on the price of a tire or a chain, but it cannot compete on a tune-up, an e-bike motor diagnosis, or an urgent repair before a weekend ride. And with e-bikes now accounting for roughly three-quarters of bikes brought in for repair, the technical, higher-margin end of service is growing exactly where online retail has nothing to offer. E-bike warranty handling — flagged in 2026 as the industry's number-one operational headache — is another front only a shop with a proper workshop can hold down consistently.

The physical shop with a service department doesn't win because "physical beats online" as some abstract principle. It wins because it diversifies revenue, turns a one-off customer into a recurring relationship, and remains the only point of contact when the bike actually breaks — something no parcel delivery can fix.

For shops looking to turn that recurring relationship into real data and organization — from service history to parts inventory — CrankPal is built to put service, not just sales, at the center of the business.