RALEIGH, N.C. (BRAIN) — After about a year off the market, the long-standing BMX brand Eastern Bikes is coming back.
The North Carolina brand is now being sold by a newly formed company, Driver Distribution, Inc. Jon Byers, one of Eastern's co-founders, said he and a group of investors founded Driver Distribution to bring Eastern back to the market this year. Byers said eventually the company will distribute other brands but is focused on Eastern initially.
Although it's a completely new company, Byers said Driver will assist prior Eastern dealers with spare parts and customer service needs. Continuing and new Eastern dealers will be offered new IBD-friendly policies, said Byers, who is the CEO of Driver. The policies include minimum advertised price policy enforcement, he said.
"We are focused on dealers and price parity," Byers said. "No one should be discounting online with any kind of coupon codes or other promotions." While Eastern will be available online, online retailers will be restricted from discounting, he said.
"The bike shops have always been our bread and butter, and we know that nothing is worse than taking a big order of bikes and then seeing them discounted online. We're going to make sure that doesn't happen."
Driver has already hired several former employees of EBIUS Trading & Distributing, the previous owner of the Eastern brand.
The company will show its 2016 line at Interbike next week and will deliver them starting in October. In addition to the BMX models, the company will offers some BMX-influenced leisure bikes with 29-inch wheels, also under the Eastern label.
Bikes will ship from Indiana with expansion into California and Pennsylvania warehouses in 2016 and 2017. Parts will ship from North Carolina initially. Eastern will launch consumer marketing campaigns on several media sites this week.
