Bike Trailer Firm Seeks to Stay Ahead

For 25 years, children have seen the world -- or napped as it passed them by -- from inside Burley bicycle trailers.

Tom Jacobs of Eugene, Ore., regularly tows his two children around town in a Burley. He uses the trailer like a car, loading it with kids and groceries.

“I often consider it my other vehicle,” said Jacobs, a multimedia producer who commutes to work by bicycle. “I’d like a bumper sticker that says, ‘My other car is a Burley trailer.’ ”

Owners like Jacobs have made Eugene-based Burley Design Cooperative a household name among biking parents nationwide. Locally, the 25-year-old company is an icon, known for being owned and managed by its 85 employees and for putting the environment first in its manufacturing methods.

Burley says survey data indicate that it sells more child trailers -- its cornerstone product -- than any other company in the country.

But competitors across the price spectrum are trying to chip away at Burley’s market share. That has sparked a vigorous push by Burley to defend its key franchise.

Burley recently redesigned its four high-end child trailers and one of its two cargo carriers, adding features without increasing prices. And it is introducing a no-frills trailer that is intended to beat back lower-priced competitors.

Independent bicycle dealers have been asking for a lower-priced Burley for some time, general manager Tom Wright-Hay said. The Burley Bee, which will retail for $200, is the response to those requests.

“We’re excited about it. There is a whole segment of the market that we just haven’t addressed, and we’ve let other people take that,” Wright-Hay said.

According to Burley marketing manager Ronnel Curry, the Bee is as durable as the company’s more expensive trailers, but it has fewer features and is easier to manufacture. It will be sold alongside Burley’s other trailers at independent bike shops and specialty sporting goods stores.

But even with this relatively low-cost model, Burley still can’t compete exclusively on price.

Some discount stores carry bike trailers that are far cheaper. For example, Wal-Mart sells Safety 1st bicycle trailers for $94.

Burley is manufacturing the Bee at the co-op’s west Eugene factory, Curry said. By contrast, most of the lower-priced rival models are made at factories in Asia, where labor costs are a fraction of Burley’s.

“The Asian competition is becoming a more formidable threat,” Wright-Hay said.

Burley has a fairly frugal labor cost structure, with all co-op members receiving the same hourly wage (Wright-Hay won’t disclose what that is), plus annual profit sharing. But to keep a lid on costs, Burley hasn’t ruled out eventually having some of its manufacturing done in Asia, he said.

“It’s really, really tough to compete with Wal-Mart,” he said.

In addition to Wal-Mart, Target also carries low-priced brands of bike trailers, Curry said.

“When we first started making trailers, you couldn’t get a trailer anyplace but an independent bicycle dealer,” Curry said.

Jay Loew, co-owner of Collins Cycle Shop in Eugene, said the $200 Burley trailer was a good idea because some people can’t afford the higher-priced models that cost twice as much or more.

“People on a budget will get a much better product than they will get in the big-box store,” he said.

But the proliferation of lower-priced trailer models may not have hurt Burley much, some observers said.

“The guy who buys a bike at Wal-Mart has probably never been in a bike shop and is not a savvy bike buyer,” said Michael Gamstetter, editor in chief of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. “A real smart shopper wouldn’t buy a bike at Wal-Mart. With the trailer it’s kind of the same thing.”

Still, Burley hopes that its reputation for producing quality goods will carry weight with some shoppers who are on tight budgets, Curry said.

Burley also faces lots of competition in the pricier category.

The main rivals include Trek of Waterloo, Wis., and Chariot, a firm in Calgary, Canada, that until recently made child bicycle trailers for Trek.

Chariot last year began selling its trailers directly to independent bike dealers in the U.S. and poses significant competition for Burley, Wright-Hay said.

In response, Burley has changed the shape of its high-end child trailer, adding bigger windows for better visibility, an adjustable sunscreen, cushioned seats and padded shoulder harnesses for comfort.

Standard features in the top-of-the-line Burley d’Lite include the firm’s patented hitch, a recessed area for a helmeted child’s head, a reclining seat and tinted windows. The trailer also folds flat for storage.

Burley didn’t use the design changes as an opportunity to bump up the price. The two-passenger Burley d’Lite still retails at $430 -- about the same as one of Chariot’s top trailers.

Loew, of the Collins Cycle Shop, said Burley had held on to its share of the trailer market because it was one of the first to focus on child safety rather than parental convenience. Now, Burley is taking that a step further by paying attention to child comfort, he said.

“Those two factors have set them apart,” Loew said.

Burley’s success may be due to the fact that bicycle trailers are a small niche market that has remained the company’s focus, according to Gamstetter of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. Larger companies usually don’t want to spend the time or money on a small niche market such as trailers, he said.

“In some cases it may just be that Burleys are better quality,” Gamstetter said. “Their biggest advantage is their name, their longevity and their commitment to the market.”

Burley’s sales, which include trailers, bikes and related equipment, are $7 million to $10 million a year, Wright-Hay said.

The company doesn’t disclose how many trailers it sells. Sales of trailers still exceed bike sales, but Burley is approaching the time when trailers and bikes each will account for about half of revenue, he said.