it would certainly increase the number of "regular " customers

Service. Service, service, service.
Service builds loyalty. Loyalty builds stability. Stability builds a better workforce, which makes it easier to provide service.

Naturally, this all assumes a decent inventory, and product line that caters to your customer base.

Century Cycle in OH was at the top of the game for service and knowledgable sales. Yet they closed down after 25 years in business. It's all about how cheap it is. In today's world, people are not willing to pay for knowledge.

I don't think any bike shop or other specialty goods store survives by competing on price. The last two shops I worked at had mostly customers that didn't care what stuff costs.

The front door key.

I walked in the newish Trek store in downtown Portland and it seemed really meager in terms of inventory. Everything high end, not much of anything. Pretty clearly they are selling high end bikes, components, and service to deep pockets.

Contrast that to Universal, which is essentially a distribution center where you can either order online and pick-up, or walk in and talk to them. Huge inventory of everything.

Then there's Bike Tires Direct, which is almost entirely online distribution center, but you can walk in and use their local computers to check local stock, or you can dig through returned items for possible steals. The attendant is just a parts fetcher.

Plus we have regular shops, but they seem to be struggling.

I don't think anyone knows the key, in these days of online sales and same-day delivery. Maybe there isn't one.

I'm honestly not sure how well that follows. Things that make a battleship successful include big guns, accurate fire control, and lots of ammo. Things that make a battleship unsuccessful might include ineffective torpedo defenses, fuel starvation, poor damage control, etc.

My twin brother opened a service-only shop in early 2021 where he is the only employee. After being in the industry since shortly after we graduated high school in 2006 (plus a lifetime of tinkering on bikes before that), he grew tired of working for other people and started his shop. Getting a shop going in the first place when you are the only employee is deserving of its own thread so I won't dive into those details here.

We are close and live in the same city so we see each other often. I'm usually over there at least once a week to use to his specialty tools and his experience in areas I lack. I get to hear all about how the shop is doing and what's been coming in and out.

The first couple of years were rough. He's off the beaten path and not next to downtown as that's where the affordable rent is so he's had to rely heavily on word of mouth advertising. Everyone in the family as well as friends who are local keep his business cards on hand. All of our longtime friends use him. I've got several coworkers to bring their business his way.
Now that his shop has been around for a few years, his name is out there and business is more steady and there's good reason for it:

He's highly experienced and will work on ANYTHING. He never turns away customers because their bike is weird, old or not valuable, something which drove him nuts at previous shops. In fact, he's built a reputation for working on weird and old stuff, the weirder and older the better. He's got many customers who have been turned away by other shops. Many customers bring in old bikes they have a sentimental attachment to and just want it working again. Others have top of the line bikes but are 10-20 years old that they just love and want to keep it on the road because it's perfect for them. He gets in tandems regularly and is a recumbent wizard. He has a Terratrike that he's doing an e-assist conversion on right now.
Another bike in the shop is a 20 year old $100 department store deal. It needs $250 worth of work. My brother let the owner know value relative to the work, they are insistent so he's going ahead with the work.
Long before opening his own shop, he was collecting vintage and hard to find tools to feed his own hobby of tinkering with old bikes. He's a bit of a retrogrouch at heart. Opening a shop just gave those tools an opportunity to earn him money.

Another big one is e-bikes. According to him, most shops will only work on very specific brands and models, usually the ones they sell or are authorized to work on. So, if somebody moves in from out of town, buys direct online, buys used, etc, they're having a hard time finding a shop to do any sort of service. He's found most to be quite similar when you peel back the skin so he's got no problem working on them.

He has a good working relationship with a small local shop which does used bikes and sales only, a shop he actually worked at before, and they keep each other's business cards on hand. If someone goes to his shop looking to buy a bike, he'll send them to the sales shop. If someone in the sales shop needs servicing done on their bike or a bike they purchased from that shop, they'll send them to my brother. My brother also regularly drops by for replacement parts if what he needs doesn't exist in his own rather sizeable collection of spares.

Another aspect is community involvement. He hangs out with much of the bicycle advocacy crowd and will often have a tiny mobile shop's worth of tools in his cargo bike he rides everywhere. Somebody will invariably need help on rides and he's the first to offer it. He likes helping people and it's a perfect opportunity to get his name out there. He volunteers as sag support for large local organized rides and will work races as well. His old pickup he uses as a shop truck will always have a large sign with his company logo on it.

There's other aspects which are more nuanced but that's the bulk of the outward facing stuff. I'd say the takeaway is, in a competitive market, which this is around here, you need to offer something other shops don't. If you can't do that, folks will just go to the big names they recognize like REI, Trek, Specialized, etc.

No store closes due to a single factor. No store succeeds due to a single factor.Many businesses close after decades of successful business because there simply isn't an obvious successor to the founder/owner/manager. My own business will likely close when I'm gone because my children have other interests.

Selling a good product at a good price and providing service that goes above and beyond expectations will keep a business running.

Biggest problem with a bike shop. They don't have inventory of what you want or what you need (both bikes and accessories) and when they do have it, it's overpriced compared to what I can buy it for online.

Imagine going to a Ford Dealer and not being able to test drive a Bronco. That's what it's like going to a bike shop. They rarely have the model you want or the size you need but then tell you "well if you want that one we can order for it you"

That's been my experience anyway with a bike shop.

Man are you going to the wrong bike shops! I frequent several in Missouri, and the worst of them has a great inventory, obscure parts, salesmen, managers, and techs who can offer advice and assistance.

Matter of fact, my favorite bike shop (Cape Bicycle & Fitness in Cape Girardeau, MO) worked with me two weeks ago to find an affordable time trial bike for next season. They found a bike on marketplace that fit my budget, helped me fit the bike (despite me buying it from someone else), steered me towards an online sale for a disc wheel that was a better fit than what they have, and then gave me a discount on the parts and accessories I did buy.

During the pandemic and supply chain disruption, they helped me pull a new Propel together out of parts, and even sent me to REI for a crankset when they couldn't get it from Giant or Shimano. Before races or big rides, they'll make time to do minor repairs or tweaks, offer advice on upgrades, and will throw in a few gels gratis. They even keep a few beers in the fridge for regulars who stop by on Friday afternoon.

I've had similar experiences at several shops in St. Louis, Memphis, Sedalia, and Columbia. When I'm traveling to races, I uniformly get great service from local shops in nearly every city I visit.

I'm sure the stores you describe exist, but my experience is that the vast majority of brick and mortar shops are full of people who love bikes, want to help you enjoy yours, and will do so the most affordable way possible. So I make it a point to shop the LBS first, and only go to online sources when I absolutely have to.

FWIW, I have two local Ford dealers. One has lots of Broncos. The other doesn't. But they can order them, service them, and sell them. They're great people providing a great service and supporting local jobs and the local economy.

i'll take two of whatever it is you're doing

my shop makes most of its money on tune ups and service, and cheap commuters. i think we sell the jamis coda s2 more than every other bike combined. so obviously well priced service helps but having things your customers want helps too. you have to cater to the location of the shop. our two locations have slightly different stock to reflect that. our place down in the city has more focus on commuters and a bit of bmx but our location more into the suburbs has a greater focus on recreational road and gravel riding and neither deal in mtbs. part of that is because theres a local shop that is very specialized in mtb and we could never compete with their knowledge. but part of that is very few of our customers are interested in mtbs because we are in a city and its hard to mtb in a city.

this is prolly much less relevant but we are also worker owned and democratically run which reduces the risk of a sole decision maker making a poor decision. not to mention worker co-ops are generally more efficient for reasons i dont fully understand.

A super-practical commuter bike.

I used to work at a bike shop in a college town. There was over half a dozen shops within a half mile circle. 4 of them were within 75 yards.

Most of them have gone out of business. The shop I worked at is still there. It does bikes and skis so there was a secondary source of income for a quarter of the year, much higher profit margins too. There is a love hate relationship with the community. Most don't like the owners but love the employees. We had customers that would come in only on Sunday's because the owner was at church.

The owner would tell us to always provide good customer service like if we didn't have a particular item to go ahead and call one of other shop to see if they have it, then send the customer their way instead of having the customer go shop to shop looking for the item.

But then the owner would get on my case about not charging a customer for a zip tie, which I save off from new bike packaging. My argument was it would cost more money to go ring up the zip tie than it was worth. I had this thing that if it took more time to write the repair tag than to fix the problem, just do the fix and send them on their way and most likely they will be a returning customer.

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I would say if those bike shops are still in business, it’s a sign that your experience and needs are not universal. What bikeforums C&Vers look for and what the general public looks for in a shop are very different, and guess who’s more likely to pay the bills.

i use the same thought process regarding free labor if i was doing something and just want to get back to my work and since we only have one register so i would have to wait to ring them out. usually i just tell people they can leave something in the tip jar if they want and to come again soon, but not too soon :)

It seems like the shops that folks love (at least the folks on this forum), are the ones that do a very good job with service and creating/supporting a community.

I would also add: location location LOCATION.

I saw this thread the other day, and it reminded me of maybe ten years ago, being shown by a realtor friend of mine a bike shop on the market and in my price range. A small, cute store with good help, but a quick look at their books just didn't make sense for me. I'd be working full time with all this risk and hope to clear only $30k annually.

Today, I see it's closing: https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2024...s-uncertainty/

A very good article with this interesting bit about labor costs:

Absolutely. There's a balance to make sure the monthly nut is covered, yet don't be too greedy because that'll bite big time during the lulls.

If you read on the related threads or around the net of peoples experience with bike shops not priced in line with market or not playing competitive, word quickly spreads and especially within the shop territory. Have to learn and maintain that zone to rightfully earn a profit yet not be greedy and p.o. customers. People talk. Its always best to get that sale while you have the captive prospect, a dollar profit is better than nothing.

Really rough going for those dealers on floor plan terms. Buyers never realize the overhead let alone the hidden interest compounding on a bike.

Then there's shops stretching or paying minimum on credit line or c.card. That interest is a dumpster fire spreading into the back door of small biz. Pay it all off every month.

Also in the latest news; GT shuttered and Rocky Mountain under reorganizing.

I really wonder what kind of market there is for $180/hr shop labor, even in Seattle.

LBS owned the building & parking. The area got 'rejuvenated & redeveloped'. The shop property became really valuable. The shop owner could sweat the details of inventory and labor, beating his brains out to make a buck in the cycle trade - or sell out and retire to Aruba.

Easy decision and we don't have that LBS anymore.

Oof, that's expensive. I get that that's what they need to charge, but it's a fair bit.

Around here, we have a small local chain where the guys there are super nice. They've tried a couple of things for me and spent a fair bit of the mech time and weren't able to do it, so they didn't charge me after spending that time. I want to keep going back and rewarding that. On the other hand, they broke a fork crown race I provided (because they didn't have/couldn't get one during the pandemic) trying to install it on a fork (turns out it was a C&V fork made when fork crowns and crown races were made with slightly less tight tolerances and less brittle materials than modern Record 1" crown races - I ended up getting 0.1 mm milled off at another shop and it went on super easy) and didn't know what a couple of the other things I had were (had never seen a tire-saver and asked me if it was just there to make noise). I have a $50 gift card I was given to shop there a while back, but I'm not sure I trust their mechanics (and found mechanics I trust more 2 blocks away from that store) and everything I could buy there, I can find cheaper elsewhere.

Shop #2, I might pay that, but I might also think a bit more before I took things in for repair. For a long time, I did things myself (and got frustrated) that were a bit beyond my ability and took 3-5x as long as they should have. Then, I found out how little it cost to get the shop to do some of those things, so I just took it in to have them to it. Now, I might lean back toward doing it more myself. Or just not doing it - I have a couple of wheels that have been sitting waiting to be laced up for over a year because I just dislike the final true (as a perfectionist, I can never stop at "good enough" and keep fighting that last little sub mm variance much longer than is necessary).

I imagine $180/hr shop rate is the minimum necessary to be able to pay mechanics a living wage in Seattle. Anyone looked for a home rental there recently?

A guy comes to BF C&V. The guy posts, “What _____ bike should I buy?”. We find the guy a bike on CL/FBMP/OU. The guy buys the bike. He also buys enough KoolStops, cables, and housings for his bike and one of ours. The guy then drops it all off to whoever is closest for a complete tune up. That will keep this shop open. (I wince at the price of KSs).