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I’m sure Arc’teryx prices their stuff to make margin knowing that most of it will be bought on proform for 50% off. Seriously, who doesn’t get an Arc’teryx proform?
One challenge with low volume apparel is amortizing the development cost. Soft goods sometimes cost more to develop than hard goods as it's a ton of labor making patterns, sewing up samples, testing, reworking the protos, repeat this several times, then have the factory make a few pre-production samples to make sure they interpreted your tech pack correctly. You also need to validate for durability (all brands do this, right? RIGHT?). It's as much voodoo as it is hard science, which means lots of back and forth. Yes, we give them CAD files for patterns, but it's still all hand made and assembly is subject to interpretation. I make extremely detailed tech packs and it still takes some back and forth to get it exactly right.
Keystone pricing is standard and less than that you're going to lose money. So manufactured cost x2 and then wholesale cost x2. That puts the Arc'T pants at $70 after tariffs.
Tariffs on men's pants and shorts were 27.9% from most countries until 2025. Right now I think there's +30% on China and +20% on Taiwan. Let's just call it 50% for the Arc'T example as we don't know when they were shipped out.
So that puts those pants at $35 from the factory. That's a plausible number if they're using a high-end factory and premium materials.
Pants are going to be just over a square meter of body fabric. Cheaper polyester in MTB weights can be under $4/m, premium elastane/nylon woven blends from Taiwan can easily be double that. My pricing comes before oil prices hit the moon. Good quality DWR, heavy duty thread, a factory that doesn't dump pollutants, bluesign and human rights audited - all add to cost.
A huge portion of MTB pants and shorts is labor. The more zippers and pockets you have, the more labor you have. Zippers, in particular, require a ton of labor.
Trim is also a big cost, particularly good quality zippers, pulls and buttons/snaps. Any decent brand uses YKK zips, by far the best, and zips are a common failure point so you can't screw around here.
Costs quickly add up when you're designing for function and durability. My Abit Gear pants have four zip pockets plus leg zips, so they're never going to be on the affordable end of things. Luckily I squeaked in with only the +10% tariffs for 37.9% total. I wouldn't be able to reorder right now and price things at a level I felt OK about, not to mention the uncertainty.
Because apparel takes so long to design and order, always 12+ months for new product, 6 or so for a reorder, brands are stuck with massive uncertainty about what their final pricing will be. Frankly, it's terrrifying, and not just for soft goods.
Apparel is an inherently inefficient product category to design, produce, inventory, market and sell, which is why keystone pricing of 4X production costs is necessary to stay profitable. Around 10 years ago I did an analysis of larger apparel brands (fashion, not outdoor) and the average brand producing at keystone pricing made 6% profit in a stable economy. It was imperfect data, but the numbers were consistent when I did it with different sources of data.
You buying on a proform doesn’t necessarily affect their margin. they sell a $300 jacket to a shop that will retail it for $600. If you go online and use your pro code it will be off the retail price. 50 off is back to what they sell it for anyways.
Applause for JVP. Fantastic insights.
Thanks for the insights. It shows why the brands with capital now all have their own stores, I e Arc, Patagonia, North Face etc. When operating at such low margins it's best to expand vertically to capture all markups on the product if you have the capability to fund stores.
Arc’teryx is in a very different position to most brands entering MTB, and the current numbers make it clear why they can afford to treat it as a fringe category without pressure.
They sit inside the Technical Apparel segment of Amer Sports, which also owns Salomon, Wilson Sporting Goods and Atomic. That group context matters because it brings scale, shared sourcing, and a long track record of operating across multiple technical categories.
Looking at FY25, the business is moving fast. Total revenue hit $6.57B, up 27%. Technical Apparel alone grew 30% to $2.86B, with 19% omni-comp growth. That tells you demand is strong and largely happening at full price.
Margins are the real story. Gross margin is now 57.6%, up 220 basis points. Technical Apparel is running at a 21.6% operating margin. That is elite for apparel. It means they are not relying on discounting to drive sell-through and they have genuine pricing power in the market.
Profit is scaling faster than revenue. Operating profit is up 49% to $702M. That gives them room to invest without putting pressure on the core business to perform every quarter.
This is where MTB comes in.
For Arc’teryx, premium MTB apparel does not need to be a major revenue driver. Even if it lands at a low single digit share of the total business, it still makes sense. The core engine is already generating enough growth and margin to fund expansion into adjacent categories.
There is also a clear user and product overlap. The same consumer buying a premium shell for alpine use is often riding. The technical requirements are similar. Weather protection, durability, fit, and material performance all translate. They are not starting from zero credibility.
The key point is that Arc’teryx does not need MTB to scale quickly. They can launch small, keep the range tight, and build it over multiple seasons. They can back it with athlete and community presence rather than chasing distribution. They can hold price.
Most brands entering MTB need volume to justify the move. Arc’teryx does not. Their core apparel business is already large, growing at 30%, and delivering over 20% operating margins. That gives them the freedom to invest in categories that build brand depth, even if they stay relatively small.
So when you see them in MTB, it is not a land grab. It is a controlled extension of a very profitable, very healthy core business.
It seems like Leatt has gotten past over stock issues? 2024 net loss to 2025 net income. Does this meaning the protection and apparel space is starting to have less aged inventory and back to a healthier state? Interesting as it seems like this is coming from sales to distributers and not D2C based on the BR article. I rarely see Leatt stuff stocked in shops or on the trails around here, so seems a bit surprising to me.
Leatt's revenues increase for Q4 and full-year | Bicycle Retailer and Industry News
The story of Guardian Bikes pushing for steel and aluminum tariffs made NPR last week, fortunately "Industry dodges 'crushing' steel and aluminum tariff"
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2026/04/03/industry-dodge…
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/10/08/peopleforbikes…
I saw it mentioned elsewhere by a brand representative that the major growth area was in their adventure moto gear. It's all relatively high ticket, and the one segment of moto that is very strong these days.
Does anybody know the state of Privateer Bikes/ Hunt Wheels? In particular Privateer is awefully quiet and has basiclly no stock on their website.
I've heard that Privateer is more or less mothballed at this point, but Hunt Wheels are still on-going.
In case anyone wants to dip in, their latest financials are available here. They only cover up to September 2024.
While I'm posting, thanks to everyone who contributes to this thread. It's a really interesting read.
Top tube humps are a death knell
Sure seems like it.
Those glory day keystone margins have been eroding lately… post COVID there was a big shift where in the Canadian market softgoods were in the 30% -40% range. There was typically a margin incentive on prebooked orders but typically those were based on hitting growth numbers to claw a few more points out of it.
Some of that is because in Canada we aren’t buying direct from the brand itself (distributor model for many direct in some cases) The largest impact was due to production costs on materials, labour and shipping all skyrocketed on the manufacture side. Brands wanting to keep the MSRP in the sweet spot did so by slashing margin. The latter likely impacted other markets. Not sure if margins have reset, they hadn’t as of 2025 when I called time on the industry.
don’t think the link works.
Love hunt/privateer ethos. But latest bike was so close but so far. I think they tried to do one thing too much and the design sacrifice was the hump which became a non starter for so many.
Explain how KHS still exists then
Do they? Kinda, barely. KHS distribution to close (unless buyer found) | Bicycle Retailer and Industry News
Ah yep, that link is goosed. Try this: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08583700/filing-history
In some sizes the Gen 2 looks fine, but in others the 'Shitting Dog' stance comes through a bit more. Overall I'm a fan of what Privateer and to an extent Airdrop have been doing in terms of making simple, strong, affordable-ish bikes. Just a tricky part of the industry to be operating in right now.
I'd be curious to hear from some of the industry people in this forum about what is, by my estimation, one of the weirdest release days I have seen since being interested in MTB. From the outside it seems like DJI placed an embargo on press releases/ forced brands into a certain launch window. I count eight Avinox M2S bike launches on Pinkbike. Surely this is frustrating for the manufacturers? Their bikes are being lost in sea of press releases for bikes that tout the exact same ground breaking tech. Seems like a marketing nightmare to have your product made redundant seven times over on the day of its release.
Can someone explain the logic behind this move?
And poor Kona trying to release a backpacking hardtail on this day. I guess they didn't get the memo.
I think we nerds sometimes get lost in our bubble. For 99.9% of the riding public, press releases and bike launches simply don't matter and doesn't drive buying behavior. Plus, historically, there have always been a gagillion press releases around new product this time of year (Sea Otter). Way back in the day Interbike drove the same kind of thing.
TL;DR, it doesn't really matter.
i think we've counted 13 bikes launching today w/ avinox which is MENTAL.
it's not really any different than bikes waiting to be launched with new SRAM, FOX or Shimano stuff, however. the OE often determines launch dates for frames.
like you're saying, i also don't understand how a day like today is good for any brand launching a bike (why not just wait until tomorrow and be at the top of the noise list?), but pretty it wasn't a surprise to any of them.
For Avinox, it looks good because it shows a lot of spec and support for them. For the brands, they are hoping to catch a bit of that hype.. Mondraker with the early release probably helped Avinox more than themselves. I like Spomer's idea of dropping the bike a day or 2 later and being at the top of the page and not lost amongst a dozen other new bikes.
A kona Unit is hardly of interest for most Mtb outlets anyway, that kind of bike has its own channels to be released, and I think that the brand is doing good in that "segment" the last few years, better than when it comes to "regular" or e-mtbs at least...
What I find interesting about Avinox is that they are the only motor brand that is offering a direct competitor to the OEM brands that they are selling to, at a compelling price point. The point above about the Levo is not an outlandish point of view. So how does a moderate/large oem receive the fact that they are buying drive units from a brand that is also competing with them directly? How much does that oem brand trust their supplier that they will be on equal footing in terms of software, hardware supply and overall support? I think there are examples of this in the tech space, but there aren't a ton of examples of this outside of that space that I can think of off the top of my head.
same thing when the gen 5 cx was released. the news is the motor, not the bike. sucks for the brands, hence why some choose to go earlier (or later). same thing years ago when intel was still relevant, and they released a new cpu. all the brands had a new pc/notebook released on the same day.
gopro nuking 145 out of 631 global jobs by year end
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2026/04/08/gopro-reducing…
My prediction is E-bike systems will soon become a spec point like "new XT drivetrain" and we can go back to talking about the bicycle brand. The MTB industry has been, by and large, numbers focused and the increased homogeneity of e-systems, geo, etc will drive a return to brand strength based on marketing efforts, community involvement, and other activations that make customers feel like they are part of the brand journey.
I think that'll be a popular rig in many parts of the US in the MST timezone, as well as for a number of my fellow northern Midwest folx. Can't speak to the rest of the globe. But I agree, their non-mtb offerings have been pretty damn compelling since the OGs returned.
A year ago, Avinox had struggled so hard to drum up real interest and commitment from bike brands that they essentially had to create their own platform to prove their product in real life. Fast-forward to today, bike brands couldn't care less if Amflow competes with them as long as they can get a slice of the hype pie. Seriously, there are going to be a LOT of purchasing decisions in today's e-MTB market that start with "Avinox, then let's see which flavor bike I want attached to the motor...".
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