Originally Posted by
50PlusCycling
This is another complaint of mine. My nearest bike store is run by Trek, and pretty much everything they sell is branded “Trek” or “Bontrager.” For the 98% of people in the area who don’t ride Trek bikes, they don’t have much to offer.
I’m just curious, do you also expect to go to your local Apple Store to find a selection of Microsoft, Samsung and Google products?
Sure an electronics store would carry products from all those brands, just like an independent bike shop carries products from a variety of brands. When a company operates their own retail store, it is intended to sell their products. I don’t understand why people think that for some reason these companies should want to sell you their competitors’ products. As has already been said here multiple times, they are almost always happy to service your bike regardless of brand. Taking up inventory space with a mishmash of older parts is one of the reasons why a lot of independent bike shops fail and/or sell out to a manufacturer. A lot of them are passionate about bikes but not very good at business so they’re not profitable enough to sustain themselves long term.