bjkeen

At some, perhaps, but at the one I go to, no. If this is your experience perhaps you should look for a better LBS.

More to the point sometimes I'd actually *prefer* lower-end stuff to higher end stuff, price aside.

oilman_15106

This is hopeless. see above by bormoglot!

oilman_15106

Back to ebay vs. LBS. How about this which happend today. I had bid on a set of wheels. Never got to sellers reserve. The seller, who has a 100% positive feedback, offered the item to me on a second chance at my bid price. No problem, but at the same time relisted the same item. I questioned if the offer was valid and if multiple items were involved, never got a response. When I got back to my office today the seller pulled the offer while there were still 4 hours for me to decide. He never responded to my emails. The SELLER feedback system on ebay is TOTALLY USELESS. The guy has a 100% rating and is a piker? To all participants of this little discussion that think what the seller did was ok, look up piker in the dict.

urbanknight

You should be able to report the listing and explain in it that the seller had contacted you with a second chance offer. He either broke the rule of relisting an item that has a pending sale, or that you can't email a buyer to make a transaction outside of the auction. Either way, Ebay might decide to penalize him.

Waldo

Actually, it's just guys trying to make some small amount of profit. You can't be serious in your suggestion.
What exactly is the point of losing money to draw customers into a shop? So they come back and you can lose more money?

Generally, the only time we see internet people in with their parts is after they fubar something and want us to fix it or warranty it. It's not like there's money to be made on them, and then you'd just be complaining that those prices were too high. I don't know why I bothered replying, though, this has got to me some sore of lame joke.

bormoglot

I don't know myself why I keep answerening. Here is example of typical LBS guy. Unfortunately, he can't even understand what he quotes.... Here is one more attempt:
You can't make profit on parts/acessories, online guys will always beat you. So you simply use cheap parts/accesories to keep customers hooked to LBS so you can serve them by providing SERVICEs (ever heard about rasor and blades business model? You sell rims at cost, where customers will go to true them twice a year?). As you've just confirmed yourself, it is already working - customers are coming back to you for SERVICES. Just rearrange your revenue around SERVICES.

Are you serious? You hoped to change the world by posting your whining here, on bikeforums.com? So romantic...

Waldo

Wow, posting stuff from Wikipedia to explain a business model. No wonder I'm incapable of understanding you... again.

People that buy mailorder do not come in to our shop for repair work. Hence, you bring them in and lose money with nearly no future reward in terms of labor.

Learn to comprehend what you read before you smart off. End of discussion.

bkrownd

You appear to be under the delusion that most of us care that much.

bormoglot

When people lie, sooner or later they start to contradict themselves. That was pretty fast. So talking about honesty among LBS employees there is definetely room for improvement.

Waldo

Is that kind of like how each time you quoted me you deleted the part about warranty? You're great...you can't read and accuse others of not being able to comprehend. You delete critical parts of others' posts and accuse them of lying. You have a bright future on this forum.

This concludes my participation in this thread, as it is quite clear that there can be no intelligent conversation so long as you are involved.

bormoglot

Well... You've used "OR". In this case it was more important for me to consider one of the two equal alternatives: "You see people who will be happy if you fix it".

So you lied about seeing/not seeing people who want you to fix it/repair it. I consider that at this point it's proven that WALDO IS a LIAR. It was important for us to discover that, so we can take it into account.

Thanks God! I will miss your friendly LBS-ish communication skills though...

bkrownd

This reminds me of why I stopped going to one LBS. I asked them to quote an overhaul for my drivetrain. They wanted to charge the same price for clunky old parts as I had already found for nice SRAM parts, and they wanted to do minimal work on the overhaul whereas I wanted a complete rebuild. I was willing to order my parts and pay generously to have their mechanic install them, but then the owner gave me a bunch of attitude about it, trying to force me to bend to his will and pay his prices for everything. Obviously I passed on that nonsense, did it myself, and never returned for ANY business. No lights, no tires, no tubes, no nothing. Talk about losing money. Hasta la vista, baby!

catatonic

only misrepresentation I had was for a Dell C610 power supply for my laptop....claimed it was a dell part, turned out to be some mystery vendor 3rd party "OEM replacement".

Oh well, I tested it with my multimeter, and it put out clean power, so I'm using it anyways...I don't like how short the cord is though, about 1/2 the length of the real part. But, I saved 30% compared to buying one from dell, and got it in 48hrs...so no complaints there.

catatonic

No....reason is bike repair and maintenance is freaking easy. Only thing I go to them for in terms of service is wheel truing..since I haven't scrounged up the cash for a truing stand and tension gague yet.

I go to the LBS for parts, clothing, fittings, and advice....not for repairs.

That said, I do expect them to be somewhat competitive in pricing. I don't ask them to meet internet price, but I have a policy of NEVER paying MSRP on anything.

urbanknight

Naw, I know that most people in this world are ignorant. Just not looking forward to hearing everybody whine about it 10/20 years later when there are no LBS and they have to order tubes with a $10 shipping fee and still wait 4 days until they can ride. And even if you stocked up on all the possible parts that you might need on short notice (which will put your initial cost way above what the online ordering is saving you anyway), the lack of LBS will cause less people to continue cycling because they can't afford a high priced mechanic or don't know where to ask for advice on a part or repair. "So what?" you might say, except that mass production is what keeps the price of products down in the first place. So if less people are buying bikes and parts, the price of those parts will go up because the manufacturers can't produce as high of a volume. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, but you are just like most of my middle school students: Can't see the future past the tip of your nose. I just hope you don't whine about it when you see the bicycle industry turning upside down. My students cry when they get an F after not doing a single assignment in 6 weeks.

bkrownd

Oh, you're breaking my heart. No wait...that was just a burp. I have about 15 tubes over on the shelf, and they have them hanging on hooks down at Wal*Mart for less than the LBS does if I'm desperate. If some ultra-weird part by chance breaks, I will not mourn the LBS because there are so many other things I can do with my time. Imagine that.

It's also pretty quaint that you seem so convinced that the future of cycling depends on the apparently antiquated LBS.

Hey, I remember when there were these things called computer stores, and they even sold computers and software. Let's call them the LCS. Haven't seen one of those in a while, but there sure are a lot of computers around. Better business models arrived, and life went on despite the fact that most people order their computers and parts through the internet for less.

urbanknight

Funny, you're still thinking in the higher stratosphere of each market. Most of us "average" people still buy our computers from stores. Best Buy, Fry's... although I guess that's your answer right there. Instead of small LBS, Performance and Nashber will just open a number of super stores and that will be the way things are. They are the Walmart of the bicycle world. I'm just glad I have a highly qualified job that is almost guaranteed not to be outsourced.

But just to be clear, I don't think the bicycle market depends on the LBS. Read my previous post carefully, I think it depends on the consumers remaining interested in the sport. As long as the average Joe catches on to online ordering, the LBS will have no impact on the market.

edit: just noticed you're in Hawaii, so I imagine even more people buy online from there than they do in the mainland. I'm going there for my honeymoon in August, any must sees you recommend?

roadwarrior

I've got an idea...

If you want the lowball prices close to home for your bikes...

Lobby your local politicians to:
have the LBS not pay any local taxes, sales taxes, employement taxes, etc...

Because, at least here in the US, when you buy from the on-line folks, in effect that's what you are doing. Eliminating a lot of the costs associated with running a business. So, get it done in your locale, and then the shop might be able to carry more stuff. Oh, and only have a couple of people on premises who can grab what you need, because they can provide the same level of service that the on-line operations do. Or is that what the LBS is for? To provide the expertise, so the purchase can be made elsewhere....

It's pretty simple.

Oh, I forgot...eliminate all the sponsorship dollars in riding clubs, cycling lobbying groups, MTB races, road races, road racing teams...basically drop all the programs that the shop's involved in, in the local cycling scene.

Next time your riding club needs a sponsorship, or technical help, call the out of town on-line guys for help.

Waldo

One more time, thanks to a tip from a friendly BF.net member...
Let's see what I actually wrote versus what you edited so you can call me a liar.

Then, to reiterate the part you couldn't seem to comprehend:
That's really some contradiction. I think we'll let the members of BD.net decide who the liar is...the guy that posted consistent statements, or the guy that continues to delete when "quoting" to twist things around.
Get over yourself. When you grow up and learn to debate an issue on its merits rather than selectively deleting others' statements and resorting to name-calling, perhaps an intelligent discussion can begin. In the mean time, maybe you should put your money where your considerable mouth is and try out your revolutionary business model.
That's all for you, please return to your delightful attempts at insults. I promise I'll stay away from this thread. Have a splendid day.

To bkrownd, all I was doing was stating a fact re: the pluarlity of mailorder customers we get. Nothing to do with attitude. If you have such a chip on your shoulder that you want to take it that way, have at it. Continue to judge all LBS by that experience...it's clearly the intelligent thing. Stereotypes are great, right?

roadwarrior

hmmm... in a three day weekend we sold 500 bikes, have so much service work that one can barely walk through the storage area, on a mid-week morning there's a line of people waiting to get into the store at opening, and we need to hire more help. And the real riding season has not yet started.

sounds antiquated to me...

I suspect your business, whatever it is (I shudder to think), would like to have these antiquated problems.

SilentShifter

....this will never end

DamnRock

anything I can't do, I take the bike to a friends shop... he charges a reasonable labor price and is happy to do the work. If I need small accessories (under $20 each) I usually go to him because shipping sometimes offsets any savings (or almost does) I would get from buying online. I bought both my bikes from the local LBS too...not sure I'd do that again knowing what I know now though...

I outfitted my allez elite with carbon bars, stem, post, compact cranks, all FSA stuff... saved $250 at least buying from a guy I found via ebay as my LBS basically opened his book and quoted the retail price... this was after he said "when you decide to go with those carbon parts, drop by and let me see if I can get you the best deal." I'm ok with paying a little more to give my money to a local shop, but not 30 or 35% more! Same situation for Mavic Ksyrium Elites... local shop just can't come close to online prices.

I do most of my own labor now that I have more of the special tools I need, although when I need a new one, usually I take the bike to the LBS to have the work done taht time and buy the tool from them and do the work myself the 2nd time.

I think for every one of me, there are 10 older folks that buy everything locally... most of the people I ride with, the older ones ride local shop bikes and the younger ones have bikes you can't buy around here. This isn't a hot market I am betting though, as neither bike shop in town have a great selection of the stuff I'm looking for. They are all nice guys though so I try to give them my patronage as much as possible, but not when it hurts the pocket book too much.

Rock

SilentShifter

All things considered, the purpose of business is to compete for customers money through products and services. Naturally, the lower the cost and friendly the service the more customers the business will draw in (all things being constant)

If business is unable to do so, it will fail. Taxes, shipping, freight, sponsorships, labor, etc are all factors a business must accept and plan for. The internet has brought a new aspect of business making competetion that much more difficult to understand and execute.

bormoglot

I know LBS employees, if they say something they always stay true to thier word, right?

Regarding other your quotes. You've stated two distinct facts:
1) there is (isn't) internet/mailorder people coming to the store for repairs - you can't make up your mind on this one.
2) currently you can't make money on them - you are consistent with this claim.

I was interested in the first fact so I quoted it. The fact (or lack thereof) that you can't make money of the people coming for repairs doesn't twist the first fact in any way. It simply means that currently you are not capable of making money out of those customers. That is fixable (unless of course you behave in the store like on this forum).

oilman_15106

Are you serious? You hoped to change the world by posting your whining here, on bikeforums.com? So romantic..

Thanks for the insight bromo. Just wanted to see if there were others with online experiences like mine and if they thought like me that the money + the time they spent in the process was still a deal. I have concluded it was not. It appears there are others that have the same experience. No whining here, just stimulation of the issue. Somehow it got turned into a roasting of LBS?

You would like it when the sign in the LBS window says "Free truing stand with new bike purchase". And, yes I think that is where we are headed. I have a great LBS I work with and don't buy everything there either. They know it and work with me on both product and price. I think they will be in business in spite of cheap online prices. The impact of the ones that can not adjust will be fewer shops.

The impact of fewer shops, or just a handful of superstores, will be fewer new riders involved in the sport. You might not care about this but I do. Try to get some politican to get funds for a bike lane or rail to trail. Few riders = no funding. But that is a whole different topic.