Originally Posted by
bikesdirect_com
OK
you have not done your research
and you are not completely logical
I have several stores; everyone in the business knows that and it is all over the web
At one time I had 6 stores in Austin with 4 different store names
Right now we have several web sites and several store names [in Jacksonville area - I have 2 store names and sell more bikes in Jaxs than any other LBS brand - so it seems to work ok]
When I was at Zales we had 5 different jewelry store names - worked finme
Nice thing is you can have different stores or web sites for different reasons
We are adding another selling site that will be very female friendly in September
We are adding another site that is custom bike oriented in 2009
And I am working with one of my long term employees that commuters a lot to develop a completely commuter oriented online store; for all stuff commuter related {in fact we are developing several new commuter models for this luanch}
But I really get the impression that you are most interested in promoting the LBS model over cycling in general - that is a problem if true.
Cyclists need choices - mass merchants, sporting goods stores, LBS, and internet sellers all provide some consumers with a way to fulfill their needs. No one distribtion method is covering the needs of all cyclists.
I like choices
I read through this entire thread and the thing that I find amazing is, for the huge number of characters pounded out on the keyboard, 'bikesdirect' never once just comes forward and says, here are the web sites that I have and here is who they are directed toward. He also never actually comes forward and says here are the locations, with an address and heck maybe even a mapquest or google maps link so we could drop in and check out some bikes, of the storefronts that he currently has open.
The reasoning for the non-response to BBB complaints also sounds completely bogus. The only reason I can think of for a business to NOT respond to a BBB complaint and to deal with a customers problem (a customer who surely had contacted the company and gotten the run around) is that the sheer volume of complaints is so high that they would have to hire more staff to address them all.