Cowboy is “more than an electric bicycle.” It is “your daily companion on the road,” said the Belgian bicycle brand On his website. Cowboy, with clean lines and integrated light in the rod, is for sale in black, beige or baby blue. The bikes start from three thousand euros.
On Trustpilot comparison site Many customers complain That Cowboy is not a companion, rather a block on their legs. After payment follows the endless waiting for the new bicycle; Some buyers have been waiting since October or November last year. Or the bike is in the house, but breaks. The repairer then waits for months for the correct parts, such as a battery or front wheel. Customer service seems to be replaced by an AI-Chatbot that drives customers to madness. “Red flags all over“Someone writes.
About a thousand bicycles were recalled because the frame turned out to be able to break spontaneously after a few thousand kilometers
Last weekend Unveiled the Belgian newspaper Time The many problems that Cowboy is struggling with. Promises that the company made are not made, the company continues to write red figures and take out loans against high interest rates. The sign on the wall is that Cowboy missed the Deadline to publish the financial statements for 2024. Moreover, according to the Belgian newspaper, about a thousand bicycles were recalled because the frame turned out to be able to break spontaneously after a few thousand kilometers.
Cowboy focuses on hip city dwellers with a well -filled wallet. In terms of design, the bikes look like Vanmoof bicycles, a Dutch brand that went bankrupt two years ago and managed to make a restart. More e -bike producers and stores have fallen over in recent years. Why do entrepreneurs of e-bikes seem to be in similar problems?
Sell through your own site
Cowboy was founded in 2017 by three Belgians. Just as with Vanmoof (founded in 2009), the parts for the bike did not come from the catalog of large suppliers, but the majority of it was developed by Cowboy itself. The brand also decided to bypass bicycle dealers: sale only went through its own site. Repairs would have the company carried out with its own service department. Later it came back and hired dealers to sell and repair some of the bikes.
Where the entrepreneurs themselves predicted to sell ‘millions of bicycles’, that number stagnated ‘at 13,000 to 19,000’ per year, according to Time. The fact that 409,000 e-bikes were already sold in the Netherlands last year, according to figures from the Royal RAI association, shows how limited the number of Cowboy is.
Cowboy also aroused annoyance within the relatively small customer base. If a bike broke, it could take a long time before it had been repaired. “By developing many components, Cowboy has made itself dependent,” says Maarten Akkers, chairman at BOVAG bicycle companies. “Suppose they have developed a brake disc themselves and new copies are waiting at their supplier. Then they cannot just go to another production line. Competitors can do that, with standard components produced for the masses. Customers have to wait, there are negative reviews and the problems are only worse.”
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VanMoof, for which bankruptcy threatens, has always known problems
In addition to his work for BOVAG, Akkers is the owner of three bicycle shops. He does not sell cowboy bikes, but was a test and service point of VanMoof bicycles in the past-and he experienced similar problems.
“We were a service partner at VanMoof. Because they did not have parts in stock, my warehouse was full of VanMoof bicycles,” he says. “I had to let customers wait and I suffered from negative myself reviews. Fortunately we stopped VanMoof on time, because half a year later the plug went out. “
‘Not available’
On the site it is clearly visible how many problems Cowboy has with its own supply chain. The company sells accessories: from bicycle bells and standards to helmets and T-shirts. A large part of the range is ‘not available’ or mentions a delivery time of two months.
Akkers finds it striking that the frames of some cowboy bikes appear to be able to break. “If you have a frame tested thoroughly in the factory, then such a problem will certainly come to the surface. It may have to do with the fact that the entrepreneurs wanted to go to the market too quickly with a new model.”
Which made the hip brands VanMoof and Cowboy even more in financial trouble? Are e-bikes no longer popular in the city? There is indeed a market for it, says Akkers, “manufacturer Tenways [een in China ontstaan merk dat het hoofkantoor in Nederland heeft] Started three years ago and did put the right product on the market. They are successful with the hip city bike. “
Yet there are more bankruptcies among e-bike producers. Last year Stella went bankrupt, which made a restart in a slimmed -down form. A year earlier, E-bikem brand QWIC happened to the same. And this year, Amslod went definitely bankrupt.
The E-bikes market in the Netherlands is stable, the RAI association says. At the same time, the market does not seem to have completely recovered from the recoil after the Coronapandemie. A huge number of e-bikes were sold in that period. The optimism that would continue that growth caused overproduction, says Kevin Mayne, consultant and former foreman of trade association Cycling Industries Europe. “It is also a fairly new market whose future is difficult to predict. For example, we do not yet have a good view of how much time people replace their e-bike with a new one. We know that much better for sports bikes and normal bicycles.”
What also does not help with companies such as VanMoof and Cowboy is that the city black e-bike is no longer so unique. Even supermarket Lidl already released an ‘urban electric bicycle’ with a battery that is processed in the frame.
Brands such as Cowboy and VanMoof have created their own niche, but they went down to their own success when they could not live up to expectations. Mayne: “In the meantime, they have to compete with large bicycle brands, which have many more economies of scale.”
Cowboy was not available on Tuesday afternoon for questions from this newspaper.