cmolway

How much time would it take to walk 50', hand out a buisness card or two and invite people to visit his shop? If he is that jammed week after week, maybe he needs to expand his business a bit.

From a business point of view, it's a slam-dunk to have your demographic standing outside your door. If you can't be bothered, you are in the wrong business.

I know a another shop that opens its doors an hour early on Saturday for the morning club ride that meets in the adjacent parking lot. They invite people to use thier restrooms, fill water bottles, and grab last-minute supplies before the ride. They know a cash-cow when they see it.

And the shop is located in a shopping center with a large parking lot. Plenty of parking.

VA_Esquire

my LBS after getting to know me, took advantage of me. I got in a crash and the day after asked them to relace a wheel for me which they told me would take about a week, being that I had torn the ligaments in both shoulders I wasnt in a rush so I said a week was okay. After a week they said they were busy and it would take another 2 weeks. After waiting a month (yes, 4 weeks not 3) they had JUST started on relacing my wheel.
After that, I have been turned off from LBS and have been looking online. Though the local Trek store has really nice people in it.

alfdog

There are two LBS near me, one who sells Raleigh with the other selling Specialized. The lower end Raleigh dealer is not very helpful. At the Specialized store, I mentioned that I'm thinking about a tri bike, he mentions that he has a last year's model transition. It was priced fair to low, I took it for a spin in the lot, but what bothered me, was that I knew it was too big for me, but he felt that he could fit it to me. I was turned off by the fact that he was so eager to "make it work" in order to move his old stock. I feel if I'm going to be making a major purchase I don't want something that was shoehorned to make a sale, ugh.

MRT2

In my area, we are fortunate to have some excellent LBS, and a few average to decent ones. Over the years, I have used 6 different shops for both new purchases, service on older bikes, repairs and service (both major and minor), emergencies, and accessories. Maybe I am just lucky in that I haven't had any really bad LBS experiences in 13 + years of cycling in Wisconsin.

There is a local bike shop chain that tries to be all things to all people. In theory, this should be the place for the novice without a good idea of what he or she needs, as this place carries all kinds of bikes, from commuters, to cruisers, to mountain bikes to road bikes. But in practice this place many people either overpay (a problem) or wind up with a bike that doesn't suit them and either winds up sitting unused in a garage or basement or sold on CL. I think this is because LBS come down to people rather than brands or inventory. Your experience with a large chain, either sales or service, may be excellent or poor depending on who you get.

It pays to look around and know who does what. I sort of have a heirarchy in my mind. Outside of emergency repairs or the occasional stop to use the bathroom or refill my water bottles, I never use that local chain place.