I had a schwinn bicycle back in 1956, have not had one since.
There is a LBS not too far from my office that carries schwinn as one of their lines, and according to them, the LBS sold line and the box store line are two different qualities.
I was in there at lunch one day last year when a guy came in with a schwinn in the box that he had bought at a local box store and asked them how much they would charge him to put it together. They told him they would assemble it for $100. The guy complained that he had not paid much more than that for the bike...they had no sympathy... it seems that here in the Houston area the box stores sell the bikes unassembled and you have the choice of putting it together yourself or risking their stock person assembling it for a fee.