Peloton Strikes a Deal With Amazon to Sell Bikes, Gear
- Peloton now sells its bikes, apparel, and workout accessories through Amazon.
- It marks a major strategy shift for Peloton, which has only sold its products directly until now.
- Peloton has had a tumultuous 2022 that’s included multiple rounds of layoffs.
You can now buy a Peloton bike on Amazon.
Peloton announced Wednesday that its equipment and apparel are now for sale on Amazon in the fitness company’s first partnership with another retailer. Before now, Peloton fans could only buy directly through the company.
Not all Peloton gear will be available through Amazon. As of Wednesday, only the original bike, workout accessories, apparel, and the Peloton Guide — a camera that tracks your workouts — are available to buy on Peloton’s Amazon shop.
Customers who purchase a bike through Amazon can opt to assemble it themselves, or add in-home delivery and assembly for no extra cost, Peloton said.
Peloton Chief Commercial Officer Kevin Cornils told CNBC that there are already roughly 500,000 searches for Peloton product on Amazon every month. He said in a statement Wednesday that selling through Amazon “is a natural extension of our business and an organic way to increase access to our brand.”
“We want to meet consumers where they are, and they are shopping on Amazon,” Cornils said. “Providing additional opportunities to expose people to Peloton is a clear next step, as we continue to generate excitement for our unparalleled connected fitness experience.”
The partnership highlights a major shift in Peloton’s strategy. Over the past few years, Peloton built an expensive logistics network that brought production, sales, and delivery in-house; at a Barclay’s conference in 2019, former Peloton CEO John Foley described the connected-fitness firm as “a logistics company.”
But the strategy hit snags beginning in 2020 that required Peloton to spend big to gets its bikes to customers. Though Peloton saw a pandemic-era boom that sent its market cap soaring to $50 billion, it struggled to find its footing once demand began to cool.
It’s resulted in three waves of layoffs at the company in 2022, most recently this month, when it slashed nearly 800 roles on its customer-service and distribution teams. The cuts were the result of a decision to shutter Peloton’s in-house logistics division and instead rely on third-party companies to deliver equipment and set it up in customers’ homes. Peloton also plans to close many of its retail showrooms next year.
The company also announced recently that it would begin outsourcing production of its bikes and treadmills, another step toward “simplifying our supply chain and variablizing our cost structure — a key priority for us,” CEO Barry McCarthy said at the time.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/peloton-amazon-deal-bikes-apparel-accessories-2022-8