- This topic has 9 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated November 10, 2005 at 10:56 am by Tombo.
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November 9, 2005 at 3:58 pm #1036925
recently I had to buy a number of bicycle parts – new tyres, mudguards etc. These weren’t “bling” or vanity purchases but replacements after 3400 miles since 2003…. the thames valley terrain is often wet and muddy in winter, and the sheer amount of broken glass deposited on badly maintained roads is harsh on tyres)
normally, I would buy these from one of the local bike shops in the city centre.
however, out of 3 shops (including Halfords which was actually OK for small purchases) there is only one left now. The second one closed because the chap who owned it was getting on and wanted to retire, but high rents and low profit margins on bikes (most of the profit goes to distributors and large Japanese/Chinese corporations) mean no one else has bought this shop…
the remaining shop is heavily overloaded with work – the staff in there are trying their best but I could see they are becoming a bit stressed, backlogs are building up and because they are serving customers they are not getting time to order the stock as before, and did not have any of the things I needed. And if I did order them they take up to a week to arrive – I suspect the reps give the bigger London stores (with larger spend) priority over resources…
so in the end I used an on-line store – everything worked fine, the site security and design was good, all the kit was delivered on time and without problems (one item was even an improved specification), and only travelled as far as from Hampshire to Reading (so wasn’t vastly increasing the environmental impact)
but I still felt concerned about using the on-line store. Although the local store has no shortage of business, much of this is low-end transactions from BMXs / cheaper mountain bikes used for daily commuting (the racers and serious extreme sports types use a shop in a semi-suburban area) – but because the lads in the city centre store are prepared to have a chat about stuff with their customers the time spent per customer is fairly long, for each new one they get a couple of others walk away. Further, declining stock levels and increasing repair turnaround times will eventually impact their business.
The big problem is that provided you know your components, the on-line store wins hands-down, when competing on price, stock availability, and promptness of delivery.
However the local store is still better for personal service and mechanics (whilst I can fix most things I do not have all the tools or the time to do so) but I fear they are at the stage where they have more work than they can cope with but not enough profit to invest in new space and people (something which seems to affect loads of British companies).
not sure what I can (or should) do here. I don’t want to take money away from small local businesses but at the same time I won’t accept service below a certain level…. should I just carry on and let the market sort it out?
November 9, 2005 at 4:32 pm #1067671my local bike shop hires a fleet of bikes, both road and off road, trailers for small children etc
this provides enough income between april to october, when weekenders want to go for a ride, for them to have enough staff to give good service to all their customers; there’s regularly about 4 staff, serving and repairing
the location of their shop is a distinct advantage for the hire side of the business… next to the river providing a number of routes for different abilities, plus hire of canoes, kayaks etc
if this shop goes under, perhaps someone else will start a new one with better ideas?
November 9, 2005 at 4:32 pm #1067672Firstly I don’t know much about bikes, and therefore bikeshops, but I know that shopping online is like anything else – you get what you pay for.
I buy quite a lot of computer gear, most of which could be bought for a very good price from http://www.ebuyer.co.uk. But the service is crap. CRAP. I get all my stuff from http://www.kustompcs.co.uk, a small scottish company. I pay a little extra for each order, but in return get outstanding service and the knowledge that I’m giving my money to a local firm (even if its not local to me!)
I would have a look round the net for an online shop which obviously cares about its customers – look for details about their premises, a forum, a telephone number.
Hope that helps
November 9, 2005 at 5:54 pm #1067666ParrotBoy wrote:I would have a look round the net for an online shop which obviously cares about its customers – look for details about their premises, a forum, a telephone number.this is exactly what this place provided – all of this and details on how to return things or complain (not that I needed to at all!), and it had also had good reports on the newsgroup uk.rec.cycling – nothing major apart from a few supply chain problems which affected all suppliers of cycle parts a few years ago due to a raw materials shortage in China.
globalloon wrote:my local bike shop hires a fleet of bikes, both road and off road, trailers for small children etcthis provides enough income between april to october, when weekenders want to go for a ride, for them to have enough staff to give good service to all their customers; there’s regularly about 4 staff, serving and repairing
thats an excellent idea, but you couldn’t even fit that many people in the local shop, and unfortunately Reading is not perceived to be a good destination for tourist cycling as opposed to normal travel.
There used to be hire places here but they are mostly in the suburbs. There are plenty of nice places to ride a bike here but they involve going 3-4 miles out of the city area to get away from traffic – from 4-10 miles its real countryside… – there are also hills there. The sort of tourists who come to the Thames Valley seem far too lazy to do this…
November 9, 2005 at 6:18 pm #1067668To be honest it wouldn’t even cross my mind. I use an online store for my bike parts and I’m not going to feel guilty about it. They have excellent service, prompt delivery and good returns policy and a MASSIVE range of stock.
All my local bike stores are shit and cater for children and cheap mountain bikes pretending to be top of the line models.
I buy plenty of stuff online unless I know of a local small enterprise that does a similar service for not too much of a price diff. I’ve never even considered the enviromental impact either.
Personally, in your position i’d be selfish and go for the better service.
…Sorry enviros and anti-capitalists! I’m not always so care free.
November 9, 2005 at 7:54 pm #1067667BioTech wrote:To be honest it wouldn’t even cross my mind. I use an online store for my bike parts and I’m not going to feel guilty about it. They have excellent service, prompt delivery and good returns policy and a MASSIVE range of stock.All my local bike stores are shit and cater for children and cheap mountain bikes pretending to be top of the line models.
I buy plenty of stuff online unless I know of a local small enterprise that does a similar service for not too much of a price diff. I’ve never even considered the enviromental impact either.
Personally, in your position i’d be selfish and go for the better service.
…Sorry enviros and anti-capitalists! I’m not always so care free.
the thing is in this case it seems that as far as corporate ethics and customer service are concerned both places were pretty much equal. price difference isn’t all that much as prices of many components appear to be fixed or set by Shimano and Zyro who have a virtual monopoly on all the components.
I did notice that a lot of excessive cardboard that appears on the store items had been removed from the online items – perhaps to save weight but trade refuse is far more likely to get recycled or used for electricity regeneration if removed at the supplier due to economies of scale.
Industrial estates are nearer to waste treatment plants than city retail areas.
the cardboard box the kit came is a useful and robust large box which I can re-use to store other tat in…
I know exactly what you mean about some local bike stores catering for kids and newbies – OTOH thats no bad thing if it encourages more people to ride bikes! perhaps in these days of customer segmentation, what is happening is that the local stores are simply walking away from the
high-end market and concentrating on this less demanding sector as the high-end has been taken by the online stores.IME most serious cyclists not only tend to own a computer, but are at least on broadband internet – (with a fair number of hackers/gadget freaks…)
And of course if you get the best bike and components you can afford you are more likely to ride it and for longer distances between services / replacements which immediately negates a lot of environmental damage
If the local shops disappear or become thinner on the ground I will miss the availability of mechanics – although I suppose this just means I will have to take some leave from work and start doing more of my own repairs and maintenance… at least with bikes the worst “supplier lock in” that can happen is you have to buy a tool costing £20 or so at most (and this is a high estimate) rather than the situation with cars which now have custom software and non interchangeable hardware 🙁
November 10, 2005 at 12:34 am #1067669After all that is said. I’d be sad to see local bike shops close down through lack of trade. Just because I don’t use them doesn’t mean I’d like to see them wiped out by the uber stores online.
The guy right across the road from me closed down the other month. Made me feel quite gutted because he had been there YEARS and i’d been a customer of his when I was a wee nipper and BMX was all the rage.
I think it was more of a retirement move TBH but it was still pretty sad to see the shop shut.
November 10, 2005 at 1:33 am #1067673BioTech wrote:After all that is said. I’d be sad to see local bike shops close down through lack of trade. Just because I don’t use them doesn’t mean I’d like to see them wiped out by the uber stores online.The guy right across the road from me closed down the other month. Made me feel quite gutted because he had been there YEARS and i’d been a customer of his when I was a wee nipper and BMX was all the rage.
I think it was more of a retirement move TBH but it was still pretty sad to see the shop shut.
Nooooooooo !!!!!!!!
November 10, 2005 at 2:51 am #1067670Can you edit the name quick sharpish dude?
Cheers!
November 10, 2005 at 10:56 am #1067674I commute by bike and car. I do about 17 miles a day on the bike come rain or shine. This time of year its grim sideways rain and strong winds off the sea. I do it partly to get some exercise and partly because the traffic is so bad it is often quicker than in the car, also for environmental reasons. The economics of it are not too good though. In the village where I work there is a good bike shop, very keen staff, but the prices are just too high. My push bike tyres cost £15 each, nothing flash about them, they are supposed to be puncture resistant but 3 punctures in the past 2 months appears otherwise. Car tyres are a similar price but you get a lot more for your money!
I got my bike from the local tip(£7), oiled the chain and pumped the tyres up and that was it for the first 6 months. But now bits are wearing out on it, its costing quite a bit of money, new chain and sprockets more tyres etc, you can buy a new bike off e-bay for the same money! I like to support the local bike shop, but not when it costs 3 times what the internet costs.
To drive the same distance I have worked out it would cost me about £250 per year, I doubt its any cheaper by bike. But it does give me time to think, which I love, actually I worked out the comparative costs while cycling to work in the summer. -
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