should bike shops continue selling bikes?

[brocklanders023]

I’d have defo been in the keep selling bikes camp in the past as going and actually looking, feeling and just falling for a bike were all part of what made me change what I was riding. From getting the bus as a child to drool over exotica sold in the next town (then buyer a lower spec version) to more pragmatic purchases as an adult where I drove to the nearest dealer, actually getting hands on and viewing played a huge part in what I bought.

Unfortunately my best lbs shut when a big boy sponsored shop opened, the next town shop gambled on the TDF route, lost and shut and my other favourites either shut or went online.
I was interested in a carbon hardtail 18 months ago that the big boy sponsored shop sold so I went for a look. Wasn’t in stock, all they had were a few road and gravel bikes downstairs then a load of Dutch style electric bikes upstairs. Then their rent went up so they also closed.

Unfortunately I’ve given up on bike shops for bikes and only really use them for parts and accessories. When you see Santa Cruz offering 50% off, Specialized 50% off and Orange selling £2.5k rrp frames for £800 the writing is on the wall unfortunately, at least for the time being.

I guess the mega discounts can’t last and rrp’s are maybe becoming more realistic so there may be a time when bike shops selling bikes is viable again?

 

[Woz]

No business is better than bad business. There's so much inventory already out there. The last proper LBS I went to only sold custom made bikes; they would have perhaps one or two show bikes and that was it. Common spares, the workshop and wheel building was the main thing and they were very successful at that and built a solid reputation.

 

[greencat]

Loss leaders can work, but only if they actually do result in successful upselling and fairly quickly. I wouldn't go anywhere near them on high ticket items where you are paying to hold inventory such as bikes in a small bike shop that was living some what hand to mouth though. Undoubtably, business like Halfords etc probably do make most of their profit on bikes from upselling accessories, clothing, maintenance plans etc.

 

[BerthaPog]

maybe sell pictures of girls on bikes. it seems to be popular.

I’m led to believe they are also available much cheaper online.

 

[Tootyred]

I’m led to believe they are also available much cheaper online

Think they do videos on there too.....hopefully still in beta format.

 

[minor_LEGEND]

Tbh I'd love you to be selling bikes from a showroom or shop, but without you telling me, I know it is a hard graft in retail these days. A friend of mine I used to work in the cycle trade with started his own shop a number of years back, he was doing really well with repairs & spares etc but ended up being shafted by a very well known bike brand that convinced him to go full-bore with their range & offered decent payment terms etc until suddenly they wanted it all paying for. He ended up bankrupt rather quickly. Such a shame. He is back doing repairs from a shed now (& happy)

Avoid any risk I guess is what I am saying. The buying public are no longer on your side it seems. You could price all your stock at a loss & people will still want it for less.

 

[jonnyboy666]

first of all, thanks for the replies, they kind of reinforce my thoughts.

i have had a massive move around in the shop, brought a few bikes down stairs in to the main shop to hopefully encourage some of them to sell. i currently have 3 Orange mtb's, 2 Rocky mountain mtb's, 10 Genesis gravel bikes.

to stock Genesis they like me to have a spread of models and minimum 5 bikes (but push for more), Orange however expect a 3 bike stock in, now bearing in mind Genesis don't do mtb's and orange do mountain bikes, hardtail and full suspension and gravel bikes i'm thinking i'll run Genesis through next summer (the bikes i have are new model and they run for 2 years) then maybe run them down, but keep Orange. my thoughts being i can order a gravel bike and P7 for myself each year and just turnover stuff for myself and sell them as ex-demo each year.

that would be minimum commitment, still access to selling to order etc, essentially the absolute minimum i can do, long term if Orange go direct to consumer i can then rethink it if i want to.

we'll see.

 

[argonsixar]

I assume you can get lower business insurance rates if you dont have high ticket value stock ?

 

[bikeworkshop]

You can manage the risk of stock holding with security measures.

It seems insurers are more concerned with repair liability.
A single claim could cost them millions, unlikely anyone could take away that much stock.

So again "repair" carries a higher cost than "replace"

 

[Rod_Saetan]

Are there any brands that would take you on as a listed sales hub type affair - ie Brompton sell through their website direct but customers could click and collect on the Brompton website and ONLY pick up from a dealer - Brompton make sure the bike is set up correctly and that someone is talking the customer through the fold etc and the shop gets a commission amount (IIRC at first the margin was the same as if we bought the bike and then sold it!) without having to have a shop floor of stock. (Brompton is probably not the right brand, they used to also insist you were a dealer and had quite a lot of stock/accessories at all times).

Back when I managed big shops (@ £1.5 million turnover a year) I would usually have 120 - 180 bikes in stock, I reckon that upwards of a third of our bike sales were models or sizes not physically in the shop (but in the business somewhere), 5% were probably special orders from the brand that we didn't have amongst the many (maybe 3,000?) or so bikes we did have in stock. I've not been in that environment for 5 years so I can't say what the current situation feels like but my gut says it is not worth having them taking up space and money on the off-chance you can shift one without either a brand behind you doing some pushing in your direction or a big presence (large physical shop / large social media following / busy website).