Rapha closes North American office
 

This just popped up.
Bleeding all over the place.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/r...merican-office

'Closes American office' sounds less dramatic if you know that only 8 people worked there, it's like a local gas station closing making the news.

I have so many comments. but I cannot seem to form an intelligent sentence right now. Rapha used to be an amazing coming. Oh well another one bites the dust

I stopped ordering from Rapha when they moved the distribution back to the U.K. even for USA orders. It was taking forever to get shipments and even longer for returns. Although I was probably not their best customer, usually only buying from sales, which seemed to be happening with a lot more frequency in the last couple of years. Too bad, as I enjoyed the product and the warranty service was actually top notch.

Since it's their North American office it would seem rather significant regardless of how many employees were left when this happened. A premium cycling brand with a well established customer base no longer view the North American market as a viable place to operate out of. Maybe that should have been the headline?

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

No surprise here.

It did say in the same article they were still calling Bentonville home and are continuing to operate 8 or so retail stores in the US.

Sounds like they are slipping though and will be another to fold in the future.

Who’s next?

6 people laid off, one is now work from home, one got a new posting
in the company.

They are not going away, just refocusing the business and going back to a more robust wholesale strategy. They have pulled back on the once aggressive model of growth in RCC clubhouses.

The cycling economy is contracting.

In such cases the fat usually gets trimmed first.

What exactly were these people in the NA office doing, one has to wonder?

https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C5...IvGDhWa-i2JojM

So when do consumers see the savings?

Finance and customer service^^

The day the office was moved from PDX to Bentonville after the Walton acquisition was the day the brand stopped being the same for me. Hope the other six are able to find something. At least a couple of people moved from PDX to Bentonville when the office did. Unsure if they’re still there though…

I would assume the staff are relieved that they no longer have to live in the World Capital of Mountainbiking...

USACycling and Vittoria both lost some of their most experienced employees due to forced relocation to Bentonville over the last two years.

are the clubhouses staying open?

for me its been a shame that a lot of great products were redesigned and become worse for it - but Rapha has certainly forced other brands to step up their game.

Bentonville? Weird. Not really home to trendy fashion brands. What was the thinking there. I would think more Boulder.