Originally Posted by
veganbikes
Trek needs to get out of owned retail in failing markets find someone to take over those shops and close out at whatever they can get. That will help them greatly. They went in took the soul out of the bike shop and lost money on that venture and are wondering why? If they had just kept selling to all these places they would be fine but they wanted to have their name on them and that absolutely killed them. That is why Specialized slowed down on that, it is terrible for business. The reason people go into bike shops is for the soul for the uniqueness a corporate store is basically a bunch of zombies and the fun and the reason why we all work in them is gone. I don't wish ill on Trek because they provide my POS system but they do need to change things around or they will keep falling.
In Portland, Trek bought the very successful Bike Gallery chain and turned the shops into Trek showrooms. Now close to useless as a bike shop for those of us with older or non-Trek bikes. I didn't buy big ticket items from Bike Gallery before but they sold me good bike clothes, a lot of tires, locks, fenders ... Now its a $10-15 item about once every year or two. The nearest is my closest shop but going a couple of miles further to any of several shops is much more likely to get me what I want and as pointed out in the post I quoted, those shops aren't soulless and depressing. (REI is radically better! A massive swing of the pendulum.)