I live in Edinburgh, and I've personally counted half a dozen of these little, one or two person IBS type shops open up round town in the last couple of years. They have a small retail space at the front, an open workshop at the back, and the mechanic stops working on a bike to have a chat with you when you come in to the shop. Edinburgh's pretty bike friendly, so given the number of these shops springing up, they must have a viable business model here.
End of the road for independent bike distributors?
21–30 of 91 posts
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by this?
From what I've seen the E-bikes have their own 'dealer network' independent of regular pedal bike shops. There used to be one next door but they moved a while ago, think the rent was getting too high since they've been steadily improving the neighborhood.
Quite a few of the shops in my area are stocking them but they all seem to be holding their nose when they talk about them.
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#23I live in a college town with several bike shops, all of them still tied to the traditional retail model. The one I suspect has the worst prospects is the most upscale one. They have a big clean showroom full of expensive sporty bikes, but their mechanics are second-rate. You can tell because their shop is in the basement and you're not allowed to come down and watch them work on your bike. And the one time I made th…
One model that wasn't mentioned explicitly in the article but I think might work is let customers have their bikes purchased online be shipped to the shop for assembly. I ordered my last bicycle from BikesDirect and it was tricky to get it set up just right. A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours. Even if assembly doesn't directly make a lot of profit, it's a great time to sell acce…
> A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours.
Yes but then you miss out on an almost "bonding" experience with the machine and feeling of intimately understanding it. That's why I do most of my own car repair, even though it takes me longer than a shop would take.
Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about the "Romantic" vs. "Classical" approach to such things.
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#24I wonder how e-bikes are going to fit into all this, although I'm happy with mine the buying experience was awful.
What do you mean by this?
Where I live, there is an e-bike shop and the owner has the requisite opinions on "green living" and "sustainability" but knows FA about bikes.
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#25As a 17 year veteran of Independent bicycle dealers, this hits it right on the head. The most successful shop I ever worked at focused their inventory on parts and offered 24 hour turnaround provided the bike didn't require special ordered parts. Service is the only thing that can't be replaced by the internet.
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
The world is a big place, even the USA. So many of Amazon's dreams and current services apply only to cities of a decent size. It can't be worth it to them to have their own delivery to the middle of nowhere. Even UPS struggles with overnight in my area. I'm sure Amazon will succeed in their goals, but there will be some pie left for the others.
As you outlined yourself Amazon will be using it's delivery services in high density, high margin areas leaving low margin low density areas to USPS, UPS etc. This will def. hurt UPS and Fedex.
Maybe. You’d have to explain to me though why there isn’t a major delivery service today that has a strategy to skim the delivery cream in dense urban areas. Not an expert in this market but I expect there are costs associated with urban delivery that offset the advantages of density to some degree.
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#27I live in a college town with several bike shops, all of them still tied to the traditional retail model. The one I suspect has the worst prospects is the most upscale one. They have a big clean showroom full of expensive sporty bikes, but their mechanics are second-rate. You can tell because their shop is in the basement and you're not allowed to come down and watch them work on your bike. And the one time I made th…
One model that wasn't mentioned explicitly in the article but I think might work is let customers have their bikes purchased online be shipped to the shop for assembly. I ordered my last bicycle from BikesDirect and it was tricky to get it set up just right. A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours. Even if assembly doesn't directly make a lot of profit, it's a great time to sell acce…
This approach makes a lot of sense. Where people really need help is bike sizing and fitting. What size bike do I order? How do I adjust it to fit me? Bike manufacturers will list a height range for each frame size on their website. You will need to adjust things differently if you are on the upper or lower end of that range.
The other model I've seen work locally is demoing high end bikes. Specifically mountain bikes. The local shop has a weekly mountain bike ride where you can try out several bikes. This is probably worth the effort if they sell a couple extra bikes a week. The mountain bikes they demo range from $3-6k. This shop has bikes on the show floor, but could easily switch to demo only.
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#28A local bike shop closed business a few months ago. They had had a location on Downtown Main Street for years, but for some reason [I'm guessing rent] moved several blocks away from their old location -- and several blocks closer to where I live. I imagine that this negatively impacted their foot traffic, even though it was directly in line with my own walk-to-the-bus commute.
I shopped at both of their locations several times, but not routinely or regularly. When the "inventory sale!" signs started going up, I admit that a part of me literally saw the writing on the wall but I didn't want to believe it. I believed it when I walked by and saw the location empty and deserted, a lonely 8x11 explaining what was up.
I'm curious as to what happened, but suspect that I was part of the problem -- not shopping there more often, for product or maintenance service, even though I am just one person.
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#29I live in a college town with several bike shops, all of them still tied to the traditional retail model. The one I suspect has the worst prospects is the most upscale one. They have a big clean showroom full of expensive sporty bikes, but their mechanics are second-rate. You can tell because their shop is in the basement and you're not allowed to come down and watch them work on your bike. And the one time I made th…
One model that wasn't mentioned explicitly in the article but I think might work is let customers have their bikes purchased online be shipped to the shop for assembly. I ordered my last bicycle from BikesDirect and it was tricky to get it set up just right. A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours. Even if assembly doesn't directly make a lot of profit, it's a great time to sell acce…
I just experienced this with a bike I bought my wife on Amazon. Amazon offered free assembly at a bike shop about 5 miles from my house. The bike was shipped to the shop, I was notified it arrived, and 3 days later I got a notice it was ready for pickup. The shop was friendly about the exchange and we ended up buying several accessories while we were there.
Re: End of the road for independent bike distributors?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
One model that wasn't mentioned explicitly in the article but I think might work is let customers have their bikes purchased online be shipped to the shop for assembly. I ordered my last bicycle from BikesDirect and it was tricky to get it set up just right. A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours. Even if assembly doesn't directly make a lot of profit, it's a great time to sell acce…
> A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours. Yes but then you miss out on an almost "bonding" experience with the machine and feeling of intimately understanding it. That's why I do most of my own car repair, even though it takes me longer than a shop would take. Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about the "Romantic" vs. "Classical" approach to such things.
> Yes but then you miss out on an almost "bonding" experience with the machine and feeling of intimately understanding it.
That's true. Thirty years ago I had more time than money and working on my stuff was very satisfying. These days I would rather go to the movies with my wife, help my kids with their homework, walk my dog, or take a nap. I'm doing better financially, but my time is scarce.
I've read Zen. I loved the motorcycle travelogue part and but was bored by his treatise on quality.