Commuting - Commuter Pricing

So a friend and I were talking yesterday about taking old frames and building up bomber commuters to sell. The debate arose on how much building up to actually do. Do we bother putting on a generator hub and lighting system? Internally geared hub, single speed, fixie, or derailer? Do we bother repainting? Its easy to dump a lot of money into an old bike to make it a bomber commuter, but could you ever resell it for what you put into it?

Most new commuters will look for new bicycles. Unless you can make the bikes look new, people generally won't be willing to pay more than $100 for them.

So a friend and I were talking yesterday about taking old frames and building up bomber commuters to sell. The debate arose on how much building up to actually do. Do we bother putting on a generator hub and lighting system? Internally geared hub, single speed, fixie, or derailer? Do we bother repainting? Its easy to dump a lot of money into an old bike to make it a bomber commuter, but could you ever resell it for what you put into it?

Look at the Euro commuter pictures and the commuter bike picture thread. Everything from dutch bikes, 3k+ rohloff equipped super tourers, cyclocross bikes, MTBs and bare bones fixies are used.

Either choose a price point (USD~500 may be a good start) and offer a small variety in that bracket or choose one single type of bicycle and focus on that. You may not make a massive margin on the bikes but if you can add on sales of lights, saddle bags, tools, pumps, mudguards, etc., then you should, with good after sales service, be ok.

For some perspective:

I live in a college town and downtown we have a used bike shop. The bikes are more or less just fixed up to make them safe and rideable (e.g. degrease and lube the gears, replace a chain if necessary, new brake pads). Pretty minimal overall. The bikes typically sell for around $100-300 depending on the age and quality. Most of the people buying these bikes will be using them to commute around town and to class (probably around 1-2 miles each way max). For that distance and usage, most people just want something that will be reliable and relatively cheap. These bikes pretty much have had no cosmetic work on them (except maybe to get hosed down).

A few things to consider:
1) Are you in a high crime area? (the more likely the bike is to get stolen, the less people want to spend)
2) Is biking part of the lifestyle in your area (e.g. do you see a lot of people biking to the store, are lots of people already biking to work)?
3) If you do see a lot of people biking around town, are they going fast? what is the approximate age of the bikes they ride? What is the condition of the bikes? (obviously, all these things indicate what people are willing to buy and how they use them)
4) Is your area full of "green" people? (I hate that terminology, but if it is full of more eco friendly types, used bikes may be more appealing especially if you advertise them as "re-used" rather than used :-) )
5) Does it rain a lot? (if it does, a more important selling point than new gears might be fenders)
6) What is the terrain like? (If the terrain is flat, you might get more people interested in single speeds that freewheel, 3-speed internal hubs, or even just a rear cassette and a single chainring)

From the posts on here with titles like "what bike should I get?", a lot of people want to spend under $500...lots of people seem to have budgets in the range of $200-300. You can get some decent commuter oriented bikes that are new starting at about $500 (but many of these lack things such as fenders and racks). If I were going to build up a used commuter, things that would be important to me are:
1) new, puncture resistant tires
2) decent, simple gears (either single speed freewheeling hub or a 3 speed internal hub)
3) a straight rim with properly tensioned spokes
4) new skewers
5) rack
6) fenders
7) if the paint were in bad shape, I'd probably just spray paint it a single color, otherwise, I'd just leave it for "retro charm"
8) no quick releases

Whatever your local market will bear. Visit some LBS's to see what the going rate is, as well as checking out Craigslist and the like.

So a friend and I were talking yesterday about taking old frames and building up bomber commuters to sell. The debate arose on how much building up to actually do. Do we bother putting on a generator hub and lighting system? Internally geared hub, single speed, fixie, or derailer? Do we bother repainting? Its easy to dump a lot of money into an old bike to make it a bomber commuter, but could you ever resell it for what you put into it?

As a business, it seems single speed would be the one (now). Take a good but busted old bike, a few simple parts, orange paint, orange bar tape, orange rims and tires, and someone will pay more for it than if you actually fixed it.

It seems an unfitting end to the bikes, but some people want these weirdo machines. I don't think they're headed to the Velodrome; just a 'look at me' thing, I guess.

I think it's a great idea. Used bikes are a great choice for new commuters, but it's really tough for a new commuter to know what he's looking for.

Check out this site for something that apparently works in the Northern Virigina/DC area:

http://bulldogbikerestoration.com/

This guys bikes typically sell within a few days. It looks like he doesn't do much more than clean them up and fix anything that's broken, although he does offer a nice repainting option.

Where are you in Oregon?

I would start out with single speeds and derailleur bikes using whatever decent but not necessarily new parts you can get your hands on (except for cables, pads, tubes, tires, etc).

If you can make some sales with those bikes then maybe build a couple of bikes with dynohubs and/or IGHs to see how they sell. I would reserve those for your nicer looking frames.

Once you start painting then you're getting into something pretty labor intensive and that's time you could have spent building up other bikes. Maybe once you're established you can make a deal with a local powder coater so that you can paint a bike and still sell it at a profit.