Many thanks for addressing my points. I'm afraid that many things are still unclear (as some of your claims were contradictory to what you said earlier or what is stated in COP), please see my comments in red below - I would be grateful if you could clearly specify BEBA's postion on the points mentioned.
Hi Alex, thanks for you input, it is much appreciated.
Thanks to you too Flecc for explaining our position on these matters, I felt it necessary for me to confirm some points.
If not from the electric bike industry where exactly should the founders of BEBA have been drawn from? Surely a group of electric bike manufacturers, distributors and and retailers are most qualified? Or maybe we should get a bunch of civil servants on the case?
I totally agree that membership should include stakeholders from within the industry, inc manufacturers, retailers, and distributors but the board should consist of representatives from at least each of these categories, plus ideally some individuals not representing any particular interests of a brand , etc. At the moment you only have 5 key brands who are trying to set up rules for everybody else and it’s hardly impartial!
Also, I’m afraid your website doesn’t list any members apart from the 5 key brands. Please could you let me know where any interested individual could find the full list of members?
As for as I know virtually every electric bike importer and manufacturer was invited to the first meeting last summer (with the exception of 50 Cycles which I believe was an error when drawing up the list). Not many attended and from those attendees only four of us have together done all the work in setting BEBA up. Mark drew up the list, I will ask him to let us know who was invited.
You said that your COP demonstrates that BEBA was not set up to be either protectionist or elitist but it doesn’t seem to be the case to me!
I would refer here to a few points from your Code of Practice which clearly show and UNfair business case:
Rules for members:
1. Sales only through dealers not exclusively online? – as long as online seller provides customer with option of being able to see / try the item and has a good return policy, why should online selling be a problem? Is it because all of they key brands have already established a network of dealers and only new market entrants start from selling purely online? This automatically rules out, for example, 50Cycles & Kalkhoff brand, Alien Bikes, and Synergy Bikes.
A golden rule for eliminating competition?
I think Flecc has spelt this out for you, however I have repeatedly said that BEBA is not trying to exclude, on the contrary we NEED to include. Any company who is prepared to sign up to the BEBA CoP is most welcome.
I'm afraid i haven't seen any clear explanation of this rule (unless I've missed something). Please could you specify BEBA’s position on including companies who do sell only online, however have a facility where they can demonstrate the product (i.e. warehouse)? If these companies would not be welcome as members, this is excluding not including. If they can, however, become members, this point in COP should be modified to specify what selling ‘purely online’ means, ie not having a demo facilities / or ‘not exclusively online’ should be deleted from this point
As well as setting a standard for electric bike suppliers, BEBA is dedicated to promoting electric bike use in the UK through PR, advertising and sponsorship. BEBA has already sponsored Tour de Presteign to the tune of £400.00 and has started a PR campaign to publicise the event. Sponsorship, PR and advertising does not come cheap so we need as many members as possible to help shoulder the cost. Before you point out that Wisper is also mentioned as a sponsor on the TdP website, we paid for that sponsorship separately! Also consider that general electric bike publicity will also increase sales for non members.
2. BEBA - organisation for recognised brands only? Well, that clearly shows that this ‘independent’ organisation would block any new market entrants, no matter how good products they sell, purely as they don’t represent recognised brands (and you surely know from your own experience that building brand awareness does take time). I thought that becoming a member of an industry association should depend on
whether you conform to certain standards (ie safety norms), not whether you are well known or not, but clearly that’s the case with BEBA….
We have an absolute interest in supporting new market entrants as long as they haves put in place the infrastructure to support their customers. Being well known has nothing to do with BEBA membership! However having a brand that can be recognised has. Without a brand how does the customer know where to go if they have a problem?
Well-known has nothing to do with BEBA membership but recognised does? These are synonymous terms and unless by 'recognised' you mean something else, then this term should be clearly defined in COP. Also, new entrants do not have yet a recognised brand (simply as they are new) so if you only accept companies with recognised brands, this excludes new entrants. Please could you clarify your position re new company that enters the market with a new (not yet recognised or known brand), claims to be absolutely committed to providing excellent customer service and would like to become BEBA member to prove its commitment to ensuring best practice, etc. Do you reject or accept / consider such an application? If you accept, then point 2 re recognised brands should be modified
Rules for retailers
1 & 4. Retailers to stock at least one brand from key members? So you can use the logo of our ‘independent’ organisation only if you sell our products meaning
you are either with us or against?
Absolutely spot on Alex, we only want to encourage the sale of electric bikes by companies who are prepared to agree in public to look after their customers. If a customer asks BEBA for help with an electric bike problem, how is BEBA able to react if the bike in question is not from a BEBA member?
5. Retailers not to sell replicas? I’m absolutely against copy products but I have an impression that in your opinion any other bike that looks like, …er…. bike (with just a vague resemblance to yours), is a replica of yours. And as you would have a decisive voice as to whether a certain brand is a replica or not, soon the suppliers carrying BEBA logo wouldn’t be able to make their own choice and sell anything else that’s not one of they key brands, as all other bikes would surely be branded ‘replicas’.
The decision to exclude a company because they are manufacturing a clone of another bike is not down to the individual member who has had a product copied but by a vote from the entire committee.
With only 5 key brands sitting on the board, some people might doubt that their decision will be impartial and not biased. To avoid this, you should have clear guidance specifying what criteria determine whether a certain brand would be labelled as a copy. Please could you specify these criteria?
Is the above what you call a
fair business case? I would rather call it threatening suppliers, promoting your own brands only, and making sure that
customers who will wrongly believe that BEBA is an independent standard organisation, will face limited / restricted choice of brands as certain products will not be available in many retail providers because of your anti-competition rules. Most of the consumers would automatically associate an industry body as an independent organisation and I’m sure most of them would get quite pissed off if they found out that what seems to be an independent body was only set up to protect the interests of key manufacturers and make sure that consumers would not have wide access to other but key brands.
I understand promoting your own business but doing it by misleading customers and restricting free and fair competition is simply unethical!
To sum up I’d really like to see an independent organisation in this industry – not the one like yours that really sucks!
OK Alex put your time and money where your mouth is, go for it, I for one will support you! 
Better still, lets have your application to join, Key membership only costs £485, I will try and get the others to vote you onto the committee.
All the best
David
Thank you for your offer for being a BEBA member, but I rather think that is not enough for me I think I will set up a political party and go for larger piece of cake so I hope you will vote for me . It's good to see that you are trying to set up a meeting to discuss all these matters and I hope I will be able to join the meeting. I look forward to hearing re when the mtg takes place. In the meantime, I also look forward to receiving your comments re my points mentioned above.
As always best regards
Alex
