Internet killed the local shop?

[Andy Mink]

https://www.outsideonline.com/21267...TT9ZSlRoV4TioM-yZpkJj9jE8qDkjVkXitJ99i1KcMafY

I can see this happening with many products. I'm don't ride but plan to this year so I'm paying more attention. For those in the know, are you seeing this at your favorite shops? This is an older article so have the postulations come to pass?

 

[scott43]

I haven't been in the business for a while. But some observations.. Shops only make about 30% on a new bike. They make 100% on the accessories and other goodies. So losing new bikes isn't the end of the world..especially if you consider how you have to buy them in the first place. To get the best prices you have to buy in the fall and hope you picked well. Then you have to warehouse them. But probably those are the easiest things to keep selling since people do want to see assembled bikes before they buy. And they don't want to build themselves (and most people shouldn't...). Accessories and parts on the other hand, why would you go to a store to buy? Free shipping, done deal. Especially if you can cross economic boundaries..they pay a lot less for stuff in other areas of the world..if you can get cheap shipping and they'll sell to you, why wouldn't you buy there? Bricks can't compete on that. Best case, like he says, work out of a small shop, focus on labour, assembly, fitting, services.

 

[cantunamunch]

I can see this happening with many products. I'm don't ride but plan to this year so I'm paying more attention. For those in the know, are you seeing this at your favorite shops? This is an older article so have the postulations come to pass?

The focus is old. What that article completely misses out on is - local shops no longer have preferred access to parts; having you order the part and they do the work is actually a better, or more sustainable, mode of business for them.

Long term, say goodbye to cheap repairs that you don't do yourself. Sure you'll have medium-priced high-technology bicycles and extremely fancy high-priced bicycles, but you will not have access to almost-trivial-cost repairs, let alone with quick turnaround.

But, you don't have to take my word for it - here's Drew Guldalian saying exactly the same things:
https://outspokencyclist.com/2018/12/show-432-december-22-2018/

(if the play buttons don't work, click on the download one)

 

[scott43]

To Tuna's point..there are trivial, every day repairs that you can stock parts for. Tubes..cables..things that are probably more work than most people want to do but used to be universal enough that you could stock parts and do repairs. Back in the day we'd go through over 1000 700x19-28c tubes a year. Everything else was special order, but there was still a fairly limited selection to order from. I would say special order disappears. People can buy those parts more cheaply than we could at wholesale. And they can get them quicker than we could with free shipping. This is an artifact of the wholesale business model. We also have to pay for shipping, no free shipping for dealers. So people buy their own parts and bring them in? I suppose..that's labour. But even then, it's hard to put food on the table with typical expected rates of labour that people will be prepared to pay. If you have a $200 bike and you want to charge a decent labour rate, say $100/hr, how does that work? It's easy with a car... So you're reduced to charging $25/hr for labour. Try making a living on that. I can't count the times I've told people, you can't fix that because it'll cost more than new. And if you're not selling new anymore..well..you've just cut yourself out of the loop. Or mfg's have because they won't wholesale to you for a reasonable price.

I chose a long time ago to not go into the bicycle/ski business. I dunno if that was the right choice..but I'm probably richer for it...