do people begrudge other people earning a living these days?

[mattr]

Re: Re:

@ greencat and mattr, sounds like you begrudge them having made a living.


which kind of proves my original point to be true.

Not at all, of the probably 40-50 shop owners i know or have dealt with, 10 or 12 are making a good living out of it, nice car, decent house in a nice location, and so on.

All but one of them have done it by having a well stocked, nice shop in a good location, offering good products and services at a reasonable price and have decent, knowledgeable staff. (Still wouldn't trust their mechanics, but that's only as i can do it faster, cheaper and better than they can.)
But 99% of customers leave happy, without bleeding from their wallet, unless they like that sort of thing. (Some really do!)

The exception is a cretin who indulges in dodgy practices, price fixing and generally f**king people over. Unfortunately, he has moved on from directly owning a chain of shops, and is now a major importer. And he's still an arsehole.

On the flip side, i know of probably twice that who have been forced out of business due to not quite getting it right. And it's a *very* fine line.

 

[greencat]

Indeed, I don't begrudge any bike shop owner from making a good living by providing a quality service. But none are starving peasants being cruelly exploited by their customers in my experience. A few bike shop owners I've encountered have been utter sharks through (ie doing crap work, charging through the nose and sometimes even being abusive to their customers). Even they've often done well because of zero competition in the area.

Equally, for all of the reasons I've outlined previously I don't think LBS can moan too much when people try to negotiate a better deal (they have no idea what your profit margins are, and why should they care). I've also suggested common business practices to mitigate that will generally leave all customers happier. Perhaps by trying some of them even the struggling LBS owner might get some peace.

I'm afraid with any customer facing business you are going to encounter assholes - some of which aren't worth bothering with and some of which could end up being converted into high paying customers for life if you play the game.

As matt suggests I tend to do my own maintenance for similar reasons. I can do it quicker, more cheaply and it's more convenient. The last of these is perhaps the most crucial - my bike is the only form of transport and I live 4 miles from the nearest bike shop. I'm gonna avoid walking down there with a broken bike if I possibly can.

 

[Johnsqual]

Re:

I do wonder which strategy is best to go for a bike shop, either:

- Provide mostly basic services to people who don't care that much about their bikes themselves, so focusing on low and mid range stuff. This seems to lead to high footfall and turnover, but possibly lower margins.

- Go for the more high end kit for serious riders (and wannabes). Presumably this could lead to higher margins and maybe a more loyal customer base.

- Try to cover as many of the bases as possible with a full range of stuff.

I can think of examples of all three of these approaches, but I've no idea which of the shops are doing best, except maybe that the shops doing the first approach seem to complain the most about tight margins, competition and clueless customers...

 

[mattr]

Re: Re:

I can think of examples of all three of these approaches, but I've no idea which of the shops are doing best, except maybe that the shops doing the first approach seem to complain the most about tight margins, competition and clueless customers...

Depends very much on your location. Both which town, and where in town.
Where i am we have an ultra high end boutique, located in the middle of the city, with lots of wealthy people passing, nothing much in there under 1000 quid, most expensive i've seen in there was just shy of 20 grand (he's sold half a dozen of them this year, in various trim levels), also a big web presence. A hipster place, full of slightly overpriced fixies and BMXs, right on the edge of the student/rental district, workshop seems to consist of empty coffee cups and hammers. A basic bike shop, sort of out of town, estate living, next to a bus/tram station, nothing in there at more than 100 quid. Doubt the owner even has a mobile.
And 4 or 5 do everything shops, kiddy stuff, commuter stuff, racing stuff, mtb stuff. Sort of dotted around all over the place, 3 are part of chains, the other 2 are semi independent.

They all seem to be doing ok.
Unfortunately i've picked up some right mechanical howlers on bikes that have come from 3 or 4 of them. Some were actually dangerous.

 

[jonnyboy666]

Re:

actually i wasn't necessarily just referring to shop owners as being the ones that people begrudge making a living, if the shop does well then the shop owner can then afford to pay better wages and that is based on the staff doing their job properly, something i think that i do, for the record i get paid a reasonable wage for my job as mechanic considering the location etc, but people simply don't equate job skills with having to pay for that skill, why should they pay? simple, either they can't do something or they don't want to do something, that's when you have to pay, and it has to be chargeable, they don't go to work for free, why should i or anyone else?

that said it's sometimes just such a fight, a customer today asked if he got discount for working at the local petrol refinery, so i asked if i could have discount on my fuel at the local petrol station, and he said (quite seriously) that he "didn't even get discount" there! he didn't get my point so i explained it. these are people who's wage is (as a process operator) 75 -95 grand a year, he asked for discount on an £88 bill after working on his daily commuter which had a chain/cassette/cables and service, so not a hefty bill for the work really, but as someone that gets 4 to 6 times my wage to push for discount is actually quite rude when you think about it, especially (from a bartering point of view) when they have nothing to offer in return, arguably his custom in the first place, but as a paying customer who was given a quote initially prior to work and gave the go ahead if he then wants discount then he should form a bartering point of view offer something else in part for the drop in funds given.

i suppose the point is, what do they think entitles them to discount? and why is someones knowledge and skill which is a commodity not valued and be considered to be something that is given away for free?

 

[shogun]

Re: Re:

actually i wasn't necessarily just referring to shop owners as being the ones that people begrudge making a living, if the shop does well then the shop owner can then afford to pay better wages

Ha Ha!

Why pay the staff more if the shop is doing well while you're paying them peanuts?

 

[k-rod]

Re:

A quick and dirty answer to the OP's original question, is that "no - but the wealth and resources of the world are so unfairly concentrated into the hands of the few at the top 1% nowadays ... that there are all kinds of stresses and disatisfactions arising throughout the world, and these discordances manifest themselves in all sorts of unexpected ways.

 

[dbmtb]

To be fair, from my own experience - I have very few people who haggle on prices. And usually that small minority is so bare-faced and entitled they want to haggle you down to a price where you don't make any money anyway so it's just best to lose that small minority. Most people in my shop are surprises the bill wasn't bigger.

But when the wealthy do it - it's just insulting, to them and to me - and it says so much about why they are wealthy in the first place - by screwing other people into the ground. I don't sell the cliche brands anyway so don't get much of that kind of business.

 

[Mike Muz]

Re:

FWIW

I can't rate my lbs highly enough. I only buy odds and sods in there, and enjoy the banter regarding my retro way of life. I'm not on Facebook, don't know how to do Twitter and I've only recently got a touch screen phone. Albeit one that doesn't fill your jersey pocket!
They organise weekly and monthly rides, and it's basically like being out riding with mates. The owner actually bought me some Fisher socks a while back! Totally out of the blue, maybe he was trying to tell me something!
I'll always go back to them for my odds and ends.
I imagine the age of internet - yes, ive had that for a year now - has made things harder for 'actual' shops to keep afloat, but I'll always use them. Nothing like actual human contact. Obviously, my bike builds START from an eBay/ Retrobike purchase, but then I source new bits I need from them.
I also think that the general public are getting more and more demanding and difficult to please, and for those on the front line, it is increasingly harder not to tell them to jog on when they're clearly trying to take the p-ss.

As you were

Mike

 

[mattr]

FWIW one of the shops i used to frequent in the UK actually has a proper staff system, a part time HR function, training budgets, pension contributions from the company (PENSION SCHEME IN A BIKE SHOP!!1!!1!one) sick pay, holiday pay, performance related pay (an actually written down set of rules for the scheme), the whole shooting match.
It's like having a proper job, and they've been doing it for as long as i've known them/the family, so that's now 20 years. The boss lives *very* comfortably, the shop lads aren't spotty youths, they have mortgages, families and stuff like that.