One Less LBS
 

Well, the recession has done it again. Went by one of the local LBS's and the place was empty. Too bad, because it was one of the better shops. I bough parts there regularly and they had no problem answering questions about the installation. :notamused::notamused: bk

Where was this?

Hayward, CA. The former owners of Cyclepath, Hayward, had a dispute with their landlord and moved up the street, opening Hayward Bicycles. The landlord kept Cyclepath open and 2 years later, Hayward Bikes closed up. It's a real shame, they were god people running a good shop. bk

Maybe the moved again.

That's never good. How was it that the landlord was able to keep the original business open? I would have figured that when the owners moved, they would have just taken the Cyclepath business name, etc with them...

Something is strange here.......

Sacramento just lost the Bicycle Chef. I was about a block away the other day and saw a truck hauling their storefront sign away in a trailer. At first I didn't make the connection because I only saw the word "cycle" on the sign as it went by, but later on I noticed the empty store on my way home. No "We've moved" notice either, so they're probably gone for good.

Part economy, part individual circumstances, part internet sales. Not much one can do about the first two, but if you buy from the internet you'd better be okay with not having any LBS.

Indeed, thus the discussions that occur on Internet vs. LBS. For folks like me that a) am still learning wrenching skills, and b) needs to try stuff on before buying, the LBS is indispensable. Further, the mechanic at my LBS is the proverbial encyclopedia of rare, obscure, arcane and weird bicycle information...you just can't find that on the internet (or REI or Performance, typically).

Those that know everything they'll ever need to about wrenching and/or don't need to try on stuff don't really need an LBS and can buy off of the internet and be perfectly happy.

In the last three months, a toy store and a clothing shop have closed up in the town where I live .

The bike shop in Highland Park NJ closed down a while ago. Recently the Planet Bike shop in east Brunswick had a fire :(
Thankfully the other shop in Matawan in still open. I'll start going there for bike supplies.

A new outdoor store, Paddle and Trail, is opening in my town selling Trek Bikes as well as kayaks, canoes, etc. There is already a store in town that sells bikes but it's main business is guns and ammo. Pretty amazing as this area has the highest unemployment in Wisconsin.

Seriously? I should pay three times the value of an item to keep an LBS in business? Sorry, I don't make enough money to handle my finances, that way.

Firstly, I'm sorry you don't make enough money to support local shops.

But what I said was that if you shop from the internet, you'd better be okay with not having any LBS. You obviously don't care about having a LBS, so internet away.

I get by without LBSs. The closest are around 100km away. They aren't open when it's convenient for me, and I have to spend money on fuel or fares to get there and back, adding to the price of whatever I might buy.

I do the vast majority of buying on the internet for the convenience (I can shop at midnight if I like, and deliveries are to my door) and price. Plus, I can price compare, which is very important to me to ensure I spend money without wasting it. It also allows me to calculate the risks.

I will go to those bike shops to browse and if anything takes my fancy, I might buy. There are certain commercial arrangements made between suppliers and retailers that simply don't allow me to buy directly from the internet, and Velocity Wheels and Bausch-and-Mueller are among them. But if need be, I can still email the bike shops concerned and get them to deliver.

By the way, discussion in this thread appropos internet killing LBSs really is pointless as the OP failed to provide any detail whatsoever as to the reasons why the LBS closed. The reasons are myriad, and for all we know, internet competition had nothing to do with it.

Very true. It's just the one thing that we as regular ol' riders can do to keep the LBS from closing - buy their products or use their services.

But ... why would we want to keep a bicycle shop from closing? I really don't care if a bicycle shop stays open or closes.

An bicycle shop is just a shop, like a grocery store, clothing store, hardware store, computer store, or whatever ... it's nothing special. If a clothing shop owner can't figure out what to do to attract customers and stay open, the clothing store will close. And if an bicycle shop owner can't figure out what to do to attract customers and stay open, then the bicycle shop will close. Oh well.

A lot of bicycle shops just don't bother keeping up with the times. They hope customers walking past will stop in and buy something ... and if someone does, the staff treats that person with "attitude" and gives the customer bad service so that he/she doesn't want to come back. It is quite evident that a lot of bicycle shops don't send their staff to customer service training. So it is a much more pleasant experience dealing with the internet. And a lot of these shops don't have an internet presence to attract customers further afield than the immediate neighbourhood.


BTW, how is United Cycles doing? http://www.unitedcycle.com/

They were the best bicycle shop I found in Edmonton (and even so they had a few customer service issues). But the fact that they've been around since 1928 tells me they've figured it out ... offer goods at reasonable prices, and branch out to capture a wider sporting goods market than just bicycles. They've also got something of an internet presence so I can browse online before coming into the store (although I see they're cycling section isn't very well done ... maybe it's not finished yet).

Don't be sorry that I manage my personal finances in a rational way.

Internet commerce seems like too convenient of a cop-out for local businesses going under. Before the advent of internet shopping, local businesses could stay afloat on crappy business models that depended on nothing but the lack of options. The ones that have adjusted the way they do business maintain a solid customer base and those that haven't will continue to lose customers.

I certainly care if the LBS I frequent goes out of business. They are very friendly, have given me good deals many times (which I never asked for. I wouldn't do that), and they seem to do well, as I always see plenty of customers coming and going. Oh, and they just happen to be 1 block away from my place. How's that for convenience?

Now some of the other LBS's around here are a different story. I've been treated poorly in the past by a couple of them. One is still around, the other one is not. The one that is not never seemed to be very busy, so I predicted that they wouldn't last long.

There was a raging debate at Christmas about internet shopping overseas causing local retail businesses to be faced with ruin. One of Australia's richest retailers, Gerry Harvey, got all gung-ho about it, and accused people buying stuff on the internet overseas of being un-Australian. Part of the reason for the local retailers' concern was the $1000 threshhold value on imported items before tax is applied. In many ways fair enough, but ultimately, the administrative cost of collecting, say, $60 on a $600 item was going to be more than that $60. I know the rigmarole that happens with the paperwork and stuff because I imported a bike frame from the UK that was worth $1,200.

Oddly, Harvey became the mouthpiece for this campaign, even though his businesses deal with white goods, furniture and some computers, phones and software, dvds and the like.

Well, there was a backlash against Harvey himself, and he backed out the campaign shortly into the New Year. Then the evidence started to be gathered that on-line purchases accounted for just 3% of all retail transactions in Australia.

Many of the people who railed against Harvey's misguided campaign simply pointed out that "right, go ahead with your 10% GST on items under $1,000... then explain why I can get items from the US for still much much less than the prices charged in Australia, even with high postage/freight costs".

As it turns out, the wealthiest lot in all this are the middle-people -- the importers and distributors who are the faceless operators that fix the prices to the retailers, who often are charged more wholesale than people can import individually from overseas.

Another interesting aspect that emerges from this type of debate is the lethargy that occurs in retails, as twobadfish points out. Their business models have failed to offer decent on-line options. I frequent outdoor shops and bike shops and other similar outlets, but it requires a special trip to the city to do so. I would likely buy from them initially if they had decent on-line options. But they don't.

In the really old days -- back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, people who lived in remote locations often ordered from catalogues. Really, they were the equivalent of today's on-line system. Then for some reason, catalogues (as in the Sears type) went out of fashion. Now we are returning to that style of retail.

Retail indeed can survive in this environment. Take the Australian Kmart, for example (this Kmart is not to be confused with the one in North America -- it's an entirely different animal). About a decade ago, it started floundering with way, way too many product lines. Shoppers would spend an average, IIRC, up to 45 minute in store, then walk out with no purchase because they were overwhelmed and confused.

Then a new GM moved in, rationalised everything, decided on a quality level, and set Kmart on a new course. Indeed, the quality has improved, the options have been reduced, and shoppers are spending an average, IIRC, of 25 minutes in store, and leave satisfied with several or more purchases. As a result, Kmart's profitability has increased substantially.

It has been an interesting development with a store that I have shopped at over several decades now.

Completely OT but interesting. We order our pets heartworm medicine from a site based in Australia and it is cheaper to have it shipped from there to here than to just buy it here in the States. Even though the medicine is produced in the US and then shipped to Australia and then back. Weird, huh?

Nobody shows up to a grocery store to have a big get-together and talk about groceries (as an example), but most of the LBSes I know organize group rides, teach maintenance classes, hold "Cycling 101"-type sessions, and stuff like that. They're more than just a wall of pegs and a cash register. You or I may not need these services, but the newbies and occasional riders certainly do. Besides, they're the ones who are on the fence about whether they can ride more often, and would expand the market that every retailer hopes to attract.

My nearest shop closed temporarily to sell off everything and move out of its larger retail space to reopen in a smaller space down the block. I was not in the loop about what their problems really were (I've heard rumors of financial mismanagement, failure to pay vendors, etc), but hopefully they've learned their lesson and will continue to serve the area. There are no other bike shops in that part of DC (by contrast, there are four shops in Georgetown alone), either, so if this owner can't keep it afloat, I know that there are quite a few others who would love to take over.

When I picked up my 38cm handlebars, the mechanic yelled out "Who's here for the girl's bars." I don't shop there anymore. If they go out of business, it will be fine with me. Luckily, there are lots of stronger bike shops in my city.

I'm amazed at the total lack of salesmanship displayed at many bike shops. The clerks know neither cycling nor sales. The one above is part of a small chain and don't do rides, classes, etc.

the only LBS in my town is complete crap. Every time I go in, they never have anything I need and want to order it for me (simple things like chains and lube, to fenders and lights etc...and he only carries FELT bikes).

I also live a fairly middle class city, so he tries to get away with overpricing items and he charges an arm and a leg for services ($20 for simply putting on fenders and $90 for brake adjustment lol)

i purposely go to REI and other corporate stores so he goes out of business.

We lost two bike shops in Fort Worth at the end of last year. One was my favorite. I knew one of the owners before they opened up. They are in their late 50s/early 60s, ran the shop for about 3 years, made enough to cover the bills but not enough to actually make money off the venture (despite 50% increases each month compared to same month previous year). They said if they were in their 30s, they would have stuck it out. But at their age, they checked the box and moved on.

The other shop had kind of an odd story. It was opened as a partnership. One partner had another opportunity in another field and sold his share to the other partner. A year or so later, he was back and opened up another shop a mile or two from the original. within a year the original shop closed his doors. He wasn't doing as well as they originally were as a team, and when his former partner opened up nearby I think it killed what business he had. He wasn't exactly a people person, and toward the end he seemed to lose his bearings. (No, not a pun)

Very few of the bicycle shops I've dealt with have offered any of that stuff. A few have had group rides, but only for top-level road riders ... not for anyone who might be remotely slow or recreational. Only one shop I know of has had bicycle maintenance classes, and most couldn't be bothered with newbies, or anything other than top-level road riders.

But clothing stores have fashion shows, food stores of various sorts offer cooking advice, and hardware stores offer all sorts of classes for DYI projects. Bicycle shops could take notes on what other shops do.

Too bad you got stuck with such crappy shops...

I'll support my LBS whenever possible, but not at any price. And by that I don't mean how much they charge, but how they treat the customers. I'm fortunate enough to live close to a major city with plenty of choice. Some of the LBS are great, others not so much.

I used to frequent one in particular, but will never set foot in there again after the condescending way the staff treated a female friend who went there on my recommendation. After that, I visited another store and was bowled over by their friendliness and the level of service they offered. They get my business now.

In contrast, I grew up in a small town with only one bike shop. The Internet didn't exist then and going to another town wasn't an option. That store had you by the short and curlies and they knew it. I was only 11 or 12 when I first got into cycling and had to save my weekly allowance to buy bike stuff. I loved my bike but dreaded having to go into that store and deal with the smug, know-it-all staff who's idea of a great joke was to send me out the door with the wrong part and then give me crap when I tried to exchange it. The manager was the worst of the bunch.

Eventually, someone opened a new store and the original place went out of business in 6 months. The guy who managed the original store tried to get a job at the new place and the owner told him if he ever set foot on the premises again, it would be the last thing he did. :lol:

The advent of both the Internet and big box stores has changed the way 'all' retailers do business. It's a different world today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. But there's still room for stores offering a level of service and support which can't be found online or at Home Depot. Not all will survive but for the most part, the good ones will.

My nearest shop is about an hour away. Wish they were closer. They make an effort to be nice to their customers.
There's another shop closer but they are worthless as far as service goes. Good thing for them they sell other stuff too.