Originally Posted by
|3iker
Potential income loss. Imagine more and more consumers heading toward online dealers for bicycles? Save our LBS even though they often look down at customers who bring their non-branded LBS (let alone bought from them) bikes for servicing! Who cares about $$$ loss, gotta maintain the mythical aura that a two-wheel chain driven metal contraption requires the same level of maintenance that of the space shuttle!
Any bikes no matter where you buy, as long as it's under $2000 will likely have its frame sourced from China or Taiwan. Also the reason why Walmart can sell 105-equipped bikes at such low prices vs. an LBS is just by sheer economics of scale. Makes you wonder the profit behind that CAAD 5 or that Trek 1.5 sitting at your LBS.
Having said that, good LBS deserved customer's $. The LBS that I go to is run by honest genuine folks. None of those attitude problems so prevalent in many LBS. FYI, mtbr.com has a list of LBS reviews contributed by patrons. The sooner LBS realise how much $ they are losing to places like MEC or REI the sooner they will drop that "holier than thou" attitude towards customers wheeling in their non Ultegra or Deore LX equipped bicycles for servicing.
I'm pretty sure I know what you are saying, and agree with you. In an effort to respond to every post in which I am quoted:
Originally Posted by
PlatyPius
As for the $500 105 road bike, it's just that I wouldn't expect a nice-riding bike is all I'm saying. Wal-Mart can sell at those prices because a) they buy enough to get them cheap but also b) they can dictate to a manufacturer how much they are going to pay for an item. As such, the manufacturer will cheap out more than normal to still make a profit off of Wal-Mart's price point. In other words, don't expect good finishing on the frame, clean welds, or even decent frame alignment.
This is a textbook definition of Economies of Scale, and it is an accepted fact of life in Capitalism. I don't know what the profit is on an LBS Trek, all I know is as a consumer I am able to purchase a BD (2010 equipped) 105 Windsor for $250 less than the 2009 spec'd Trek 1.5. There is a price point at which the premium paid to an LBS becomes sour to the consumer, and $250 is well past that, and that's if the bikes were spec'd the same.
Originally Posted by
PlatyPius
I don't care about the name on the downtube either - as long as it's not Trek.
I test rode a Trek 1.5 at the LBS just yesterday. It is a bike, that's all I can say. Like anything else that becomes infectiously popular, there is a backlash, and I understand it. Trek to me is like the Kleenex of bikes - does the job, but so does store brand.
With respect to the Italian mechanics quote, yes, it makes us all laugh. We are in a niche market, and I would say that on BF, this is an inside joke. To Joe Q. Consumer who shops at Wal-Mart all the time and doesn't cycle on a regular basis, this marketing actually works on him.
FWIW, I also agree with everything billyymc said.
That is all.