BassManNate

I realize that I may get flamed for this post as I'm sure there are plenty of professionals on this forum that work in local bike shops (and I really like to support you guys!) but here it goes anyway.

Now, I realize that local bike shops really don't have the lower costs associated with online retailers like Jenson, but how much is too much for tools? I really like throwing my business at the local guys, but so much of the time, I feel like I'm gouged when I walk out.

For instance, I went to my local shop today because I needed a chain breaker. They had the Park CT-5 which was what I was sorta looking at getting anyway. Jenson has it for $15.95 but they had it for $28.99 at the shop! I bought it anyway because I was in desperate need of a good chain tool but what do you guys feel is too much to pay for tools before you go to an online retailer? There really aren't any shops in town that carry as wide of a selection of tools as this one does!

rhenning

By the time you pay shipping Jenson is the same price and if for some reason something is wrong with the tool it will cost even more for return shipping.. Roger

jasonrobo02

My philosophy is this: If I need it quickly, then only LBS will work. If I don't need it quickly, then I weigh out online price+shipping vs. LBS price plus sales tax. If they are within a couple %, I'll usually support the LBS.

It's really up to you and what you value. You could always ask the LBS to match, or at least come close to matching Jenson's price. You can also try SpinDoctor tools from Performance bike if you're looking for a cheaper price. There are times when the quality of Park Tools is warranted, but for other items, the cheaper SpinDoctor version is a smarter purchase for the home mechanic.

RonH

If you need the tool right now then the bike shop price is ok. If you can want a few days or longer then online may be ok if the shipping doesn't kill the deal. Buy several items so the shipping seems reasonable.

Cachequatch

One old standby I go with is Time=Money. The more convenient it is, the more its gonna cost. If you have time to wait, then you can usually find a good deal on some things.

I'm a little biased since I work at a bike shop, but before I started working there, I was an online bargain hunter. It was only when I needed it right then and there that I would swing by my LBS. Now that I am spending a majority of my time at the shop, I have to say that we all appreciate your patronage. Building up a rapport with the staff is usually a really good thing, and when it comes time to ask some questions about doing work at home, speaking for myself, I would be more than happy to give you some advice and pointers. I hope this is the same situation that you have with your LBS!

BassManNate

Thanks for all the replies! I guess it really is just like anything else. If I'm willing to wait for it, the price might be better.

I really do know what it means to be on the local side of things. Before I moved to Chicago, I worked in a small music store in Pensacola, FL. We really had a great repair shop (well, they still do!) and we inspected every new instrument that came from the manufacturers whether it was special order or if it was store stock. Nothing killed us more than to see people come in with brand new trombones/clarinets/etc that they bought for a few hundred dollars less than we sold them for online and need work done on them because something happened in shipment or the factory was running a few units behind or whatever. I really value the knowledge of the local shop.

shelbyfv

I have never found Park tools discounted much online. The price at Jenson is pretty much the same as other retailers including Performance and REI. There are good reasons to shop locally but that is quite a markup.

CPFITNESS

the savings online comes from buying a bunch of stuff at once and gettng combined shipping. you can get tons of stuff online and the whole "free shippingon orders over $100" is easy because typically adding a few other small things into the shipping box doesn't result in any increased charges. online stores have no leases to pay, fewer employees to pay, so they can offer better prices. it's 6 of 1, half dozen of another. Nashbar ****ed up and didn't ship my bottom bracket properly, it went out a day after everything else and with regular shipping not 2 day like the rest of my order. I ended up paying $40 for a bottom bracket from my lbs because I wanted the bike done today. I could have waited 7-10 days for my $15 nashbar bottom bracket.

dedhed

I just picked up a mirror I had to order from the LBS. When I ordered it they said 1-2 days. after 4 days I called - not in. Last night after 11 days I called again - it's in.

I had to wait 11 days make 2 trips to the LBS, make 2 phone calls and may have saved $2-3, partly cuz of my bike Fed membership discount.

I could have ordered from the net at home, had it delivered to my door, no calls (hopefully), in about same time, but spent $2-3 more. And they wonder why people buy on the net.

This isn't my favorite LBS, but closest to home and I had a BTWW $10 off coupon or I wouldn't have gone there.

fietsbob

If you have a longer list of stuff then paying shipping is OK, If some items are sold thru a wholesale distributor your local shop does not have an account with, you can ask them to open one. if they will not , go where they have such an account.

I got stuff from Seattle when even online dealers came up short. I'm in not Portland .. Oregon..

snafu21

I won't use my local bike shop at all because everything is overpriced. I feel they prey on the weekenders who can't fix their own bikes. I went in for a bottle cage the other day: £8.50. The same one is on Amazon for £3.99 with free shipping, a free bottle, and no hassle returns. When I pointed this out, the guy in the shop came up with some patronising B/S that the alloy cage was made of 'special lightweight alloy handwelded for strength'. It may have been, but then so was the identical one on Amazon. Sure, they have over-heads, but this is the 21st Century, not 1897. Price-matching? Doesn't happen at my LBS.

In the UK we have Amazon, Chain Reaction Cycles and Wiggle, all of whom ship for free and all of whom have been graceful on returns. It's cheaper and easier for me to walk across the road and post a return package, than it is to drive 20 miles to the LBS to argue with a guy who supplied the wrong bottom-bracket spindle length.

Some LBS's gouge on price, and the unwary/rushed pay them. It's a fact.

Bike mechanics over here are paid just over minimum wage of about £7.00 an hour. The LBS mentioned charges £30.00 an hour for their work. It's taken a while, but I now fix my own bikes from the bottom bracket up. And shop exclusively online: Ebay for tubes, tyres and chains, the other three retailers for tools and drive-chain parts.

bjoerges

Many LBS's can't help but gouge, as you put it, on price. For most products in a lot of industries, the retailer's cost of a product is close (if not exactly) half of it's MSRP. There are a few things where there is a bigger markup (and those tend to be on high volume necessities). So for example, you are coming in to buy a tool that the MSRP is $30 and the retailer has it marked $30. They paid a distributor ~$15 each for 5 of them to sell. An online merchant buys 500 of them directly from the manufacturer for $9 each then mark it $14.95 on their website. The LBS can't price match down to $14.95 because they lose money on paper even before factoring business costs like rent, wages, utilities, credit card processing... A very good retail business has a 10% profit margin, meaning 50% of sales is direct costs, 40% of sales is overhead, and 10% goes to profit.

If such a business were to sell you the tool that has a bottom line cost of $27 for $15, that means they lose $12. They have to sell the remaining 4 at full retail price just to break even on the 5 tools that they had in the first place.

Our shop runs into this issue slightly with some odd-ball items like Clif Bars. The best price we can get is about $0.80/each and then we sell them at $1.39. A half-mile down the road there is a Trader Joe's that has them for $0.89/each!

KDC1956

Guess I am lucky here we have 4 good LBS and most of them will match online price for me.If they can't for some reason then I will go the online way.But I do try to give all of my LBS a go first if they can come close and I need/want it right now then I will buy from them at that time.But the more you know how to do to your bicycle the better you can shop online too.My 2 cents on this.

BassManNate

Yup, the music instrument industry is about the same. If you cut MSRP in half then you can figure out the dealer's cost. Of course, the more you buy the better your dealer cost is. I figured this was what was going on with tools at the LBS. Music stores at least have the protection of minimum advertised price meaning that no one can advertise a price lower than the minimum no matter what their cost is. We used to try to talk the owner into discounting accessories at least a little bit because we knew that there were people who came in that would buy almost everything off the internet.

CPFITNESS

It's not feasible for lbs here in nyc with tiny storefronts and astronomical leases to carry items in enough qty to get low prices. It boils down to do i want it now or do I want to wait for it. Not to mention all the online retailers are often selling out closest stock. I got a set of cranks that msrp for 250 bucks for 35 bucks shipped presumably because 3 new models have released since these came out in 2003 and the etailer bought the remaining overstock cheap.

MNRon

Our LBS can get most anything you order the next day, no extra charge (so no shipping costs) and at most, three days. They will back up anything and really care about the sport and their customers. You can always beat a price on the internet, but I really think that I will miss the smaller shops when all that are left are large muli-shop owners who only care about the bottom-line and internet sites.

NightShift

What is a reasonable pay rate for shop mechanics (preferably in percentage over minimum wage), and what is a fair price for they're time (customer cost)?

CPFITNESS

I live on the Upper East Side of NYC. Very affluent neighborhood but i'm not one of them! 2 weeks ago I brought in a carbon fork from nashbar along with headset to have them install since they had the right tools and to watch the process to learn from it. Yesterday I brought in new cranks for them to install and the mechanic says "why you keep buying stuff from the internet instead of buying good stuff from us here?" I looked him dead in his eye and said "I'm not one of these Upper Eastsiders with money, if I was, I wouldn't be fixing up a 27 year old bike, piece by piece. I do my homework, these are cranks that sold brand new 5 years ago for $250 bucks, I got them for $35 but I'm more than happy to pay you guys fair value for your time to install them"

In the end, it works out goodfor all parties. Generally if you buy parts from them, they go ahead and do the install for free barring any major adjustments needing to be done or problems uncovered. Bring your own parts, you get charged labor. either way they make money, I save money and we are happy. Same with bikes direct bikes. They don't mind assembling and giving everything a good once over. Even if they charge $150 for it, I as a consumer can buy a $1000 ultegra equipped bike and pay them $150 for a total cost of $1150 when the cost of a similarly equipped bike in their shop is going to be close to $3000. Even if I have to pay them for a tune up every year, I'd have to get a whole lot of tuneups for it to not save me money.

ScrubJ

THIS!

I am in a completely different industry and face the same issues. There are online sellers who sell below my cost. Every time someone comes in with an online price expecting to match it I just cringe. It's easy for armchair commandos to dictate what they want to pay for something as long as they don't own a business. It's summer here and just turning on my A/C increases my electric bill $600.00 a month, who pays for that?

noglider 

Then again, you can ask.

I was all set to buy tires for my car from tirerack.com. I called the mechanic near my workplace and asked if he was willing to install tires that I brought in. He said he'd like to win my business, so he did some research and told me the price of the tires he could give me. It was only a hair higher than the mail order place. I do want to support a local business, and it was a smal premium to pay.

So for once, I used a big online company for research and bought locally. Normally, people do the opposite. In the end, I was very happy with my transaction.

You could ask your LBS to bring the price down a bit. Tell them they don't have to match it but make it worth your while to buy from them. They may go for it. But they won't if you don't ask.

Of course, don't do this too often, and don't try to nickel and dime them to death.

operator

You ******bags complaining about shop service rates and product markup have clearly *never* worked in the bike industry, and have never worked up to anywhere where numbers get shown. Shop mechanics get paid crap, are expected to generate shop rate and do perfect work and provide 100% customer service all the time, everywhere.

You show me someone who is interetesed in an industry that pays out $15/hour CAD tops to experienced TOP mechanics. Who pays for the mechanics during the off season? Do they get fired? Or do they actually get carried on? Where does this money come from?

Most retail bike shops are for profit. Everyone wants to pay online prices for product that you can see, feel, touch, try on, warranty, refund and exchange. You like those cycling shoes you're wearing? You going to try them on over the internet? Or are you going to walk into a real store that carries them?

Yeah didn't think so.

Don't like LBS prices for accessories/parts? Buy them online. Pay shipping and wait. Most people who have the time and energy to shop online, do all their own research, install the parts and have the tools to do so to various degrees. The fact that bicycle shops even exist as more than just a service shop with low inventory of anything bike related tells you that the people who complain online about prices are the same people we do not depend on for our core revenue.

The people who buy a $6k Cervelo S2, or the guy who buys a $10k pinarello dogma, doesn't care that he can get it cheaper online. They want to be able to walk into a real shop, talk to real people and have their stuff maintained for them.

Most shop owners are not getting ridiculously rich off their business. If you think they are, go try and start your own shop with your own money on the line and get an understanding of how things work before *****ing about it.

And as a last thing don't ****ing ask your shop for discounts. Everyone asks the same thing. If you deserve a discount, we will give it to you without you asking for it. Why don't you try and walk into walmart and ask for discounts on random items?

Seriously, internet penny wise shoppers - go you guys.

noglider 

operator, it wasn't a complaint. The OP asked how much extra he should be paying. You could weigh in with your opinion by providing an answer. How much do you think he should have paid? It would help him in the future, and it might make him willing to pay it. You're a good mechanic with knowledge of the industry, so your opinion counts.

operator

My take on that is - pay for stuff when you feel like giving back to local businesses (this goes for any product/industry). If something you feel you'd rather pay less for online, and wait then do so. I'd rather the OP not go into shops and feel like he's obligated to purchase from them - or feel guilty after said purchase. This is not good for business.

Let the shop owner worry about keeping the doors open.

PishPoshh

Personally I like to help LBS but since money is tight I tend to try to find the best deal online since I am a patience fellow . If you do not need the tools right away and the price is very different from online + tax + shipping vs. LBS , I would just buy from wherever it is cheaper .

wrk101

+1 What is a reasonable premium? 25%? 50%? 100%?

Running a brick and mortar bike shop is a tough way to make a living, and I would expect a premium to be applied to the pricing. But it gets tough when my online tubes cost $2 each, and my online bar tape costs $5, and the local shop wants $6 for a tube, and $18 for bar tape. I guess they consider those items to be last minute convenience buys, so the markup really goes up. 3X to 4X is too much for me.