If I Owned a Bike Shop

by Mark Ferguson on January 14, 2010

I’d spend less time wast­ing time and more time attend­ing to customers.

Enter the Internet.

Not only handy for find­ing inform­a­tion, order­ing more bikes and surf­ing porn, but what a great way to con­nect with exist­ing and poten­tial customers.

Here’s some stuff I’d do.

  • Start a blog and link it with my website.
  • Actu­ally have a website.
  • Start a group ride from my shop and update the crew via social media.
  • Cre­ate a Face­book fan page and post to it every day. Group ride inform­a­tion, cyc­ling tips and share inform­a­tion you’ve found on the web.
  • Open a twit­ter account, net­work with fel­low cyc­lists on twit­ter. (poten­tial customers)
  • I’d be a real per­son rather than a bike shop in the way I approached social media. Show per­son­al­ity rather than act like a face­less bike shop.
  • I’d d open a Flickr account and post photo’s and video to both my blog and flickr.
  • Offer free main­ten­ance tips on Twit­ter, my blog and the FB fan page.
  • I’d post reg­u­larly on my blog, offer­ing free inform­a­tion on main­ten­ance, product reviews, bike fit etc.
  • Update cus­tom­ers via social media when their order has arrived or the bike is ready to be picked up.
  • Encour­age every­one I meet to con­nect with me via social media.
  • I’d con­nect with other bike shops and col­lab­or­ate rather than compete.

After all — it’s free.

I would ded­ic­ate one third of my time to mar­ket­ing, one third of my time to net­work­ing and one third for everything else.

Sounds unreal­istic huh?

You’ve got tasks such as order­ing invent­ory, account­ing, sales, repairs, main­ten­ance, mer­chand­ising, renov­a­tions etc etc. You don’t have time for the inter­webs right?

My ques­tion to you is, when was the last time you asked yourself -

Is what I’m doing right now help­ing me achieve my goals? Help­ing me improve my business?

Are you really adding value or are you just killing time, run­ning a mediocre busi­ness, same old thing — being ordinary.

Stock, account­ing, main­ten­ance is all import­ant stuff — but why should you do it? Hire someone. This is your busi­ness. You need to focus on being the face of your com­pany and attend­ing to your people.

That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? — the people.

  • gplama

    Good post, I like!

    The bone I have with local shops comes down to price.

    Exhibit A. I’ve just ordered an upgrade (x2 lots of them actu­ally as the price was right.) over the Inter­net that local stores don’t come close with. AU$287 for Ultegra 6700 shifters. Local prices for the identical item is $619 and $658 (one Melb, one Syd). Fair enough I might be able to haggle the local stores down, get them to install them for free(?!), return them if they break… but then again I could buy two sets of everything from the UK, and still have more money in my pocket.

    From what I’ve been told, the whole­sale price is set higher on some items than what can be impor­ted from the UK (for vari­ous reas­ons, GST, etc), how­ever I’d then expect the stores to put pres­sure on the local dis­trib­ut­ors to address this issue to at least make the prices some­what com­pet­it­ive and in turn mak­ing the cus­tomer rela­tion­ship side of things worth while. I’d pay a little more than UK/import prices if I felt like I was being ‘looked after’.

    I’d like to keep my spend­ing local and sup­port­ing the local ‘scene’ — but just as they have to run a busi­ness to make money, I’ve also got an interest in sav­ing mine and not spend­ing twice as much for the exact same equipment.

    Things also get messy when ‘shops’ are approached for support/sponsorship. It becomes a bit of a chicken and egg scen­ario. Should riders accept a shop spon­sor­ship and pay 2x for their parts and equip­ment (which could in turn cost them far more than what their spon­sor­ship provides), or do they look for some­thing more com­mer­cially inde­pend­ent? Even then there is a can of worms as some clubs are tied to stores — which in turn expect them to shop there. A per­fectly reas­on­able expect­a­tion from the store per­spect­ive, but can get tricky if a rider does not want to shop there and/or freely advert­ise said store on their kit.

    Local stores may never win the war against import­ing the ‘small goods’ — but there will always be a mar­ket for full bikes, bike fit, after sales ser­vice, and tricky art forms such as wheel build­ing.… and speak­ing of, I’m now off to my local to pickup a wheel they’ve built up for me, I’m also wear­ing their socks most of the time I’m racing as they look after my wheels very nicely. :)

  • http://updownhills.blogspot.com/ Nick Orloff

    Or you could remain a grumpy small busi­ness owner, and spend all day com­plain­ing that people are buy­ing their bike bits online for cheaper than you can get them whole­sale. And then won­der why your busi­ness is failing.

    I had an amaz­ingly pos­it­ive LBS exper­i­ence over the past month — I was in Byron Bay, and Chris & Adrian (I think, I’m not good with names) at Byron Bay Bicycles could not have been more help­ful. If I lived in that part of the world, I’d be happy to pay retail for my con­sum­ables and bits.

    The real­ity is that I live in SE Mel­bourne, and try as I might, I can’t find a LBS that seems inter­ested in devel­op­ing a rela­tion­ship with me as a cus­tomer. So, I’ll keep order­ing my spare tubes and what­nots from the UK.

  • http://www.cyclingmaven.com/ Cyc­ling Maven

    The topic of the over priced cyc­ling goods in the Aus­tralian mar­ket is an inter­est­ing topic that I’d like to research further.

    Retail­ers can only influ­ence what they have con­trol over and cus­tomer ser­vice is at the top of the food chain.

    I would gladly pay extra if I was made to feel spe­cial. A lot of bike shop own­ers I talk to aren’t really too fussed about the threat of online businesses.

    The prob­lem is — most bike shop own­ers sit on their hands, take it for gran­ted that there’s always gonna be a mar­ket for repairs, wheel tru­ing etc.

    What hap­pens when freel­ance mobile mech­an­ics start rock­ing up to ser­vice bikes at the cus­tom­ers home — for the same price the bike shop charges. It’s what $100 — $150 for a full service?

    Then they’ve got a prob­lem — espe­cially as the online sales, trust and ease of trans­ac­tion builds momentum over the next few years.

    The only retail­ers who’ll sur­vive are the ones who value the cus­tomer — who go the extra yards, think out­side the box.

  • gplama

    Spot on CM. Speak­ing of feel­ing spe­cial… I rocked up to my local store today to get my wheel. “Oh, we put aero spokes on this for you, so you can use it for racing no wor­ries, it’ll be FAST”!

    That’s the kind of ser­vice I like!

  • http://www.cyclingmaven.com/ Cyc­ling Maven

    Yeah — totally agree about Mel­bourne Nick. It’s like we owe them something.

    Most bike shop own­ers will speak to you with con­tempt about you shop­ping online — things like — “go ahead, shop online and see who’ll mount it or repair it for you”

    I’d take a dif­fer­ent approach — As I don’t have any con­trol over you shop­ping online, I’d encour­age you to go for it — Shock hor­ror! — and then I’d offer to install or mount it for a small fee. We’d both be happy. You’ve saved money — I’ve made a little money and we’ve both con­trib­uted to a last­ing recip­rocal relationship.

    The prob­lem is, they take it per­son­ally, like you’re cheat­ing or some­thing. Like you owe them.

  • http://www.cyclingmaven.com/ Cyc­ling Maven

    Hang on to them mate, they’re a gem in the rough. Who’s the shop? Give them a plug.

    Salter Cycles in Altona is mine. Adrian puts the cus­tomer first, money second and knows his sh*t.

  • gplama

    Andy (owner/operator) over at BikePro. http://www.bikepro.com.au They’re over on White­horse Rd in Sur­rey Hills (Mel­bourne). Not too far from work which is handy. Andy knows his stuff, have a read of his bio on http://www.bikepro.com.au/who-we-are It also alludes to the polit­ics of run­ning a bike shop! :)

  • http://ak.thebigring.com.au/ Atomic Kit­ten

    +1 for bike pro.

    Just paid $10 to get my steerer tube cut and the crown fork hammered down / installed — mech­anic stopped what he was doing and did it on the spot for me. That’s great. As Andy worked out how much to charge me, a mature lady entered the store with her bike, and the same mech­anic rightly guessed she needed her tyres pumped up — which he did without a fuss.

    I’m guess­ing there are a few more stor­ies float­ing around as from what I saw, BikePro are doing it right.

    I hope to fin­ish build­ing my new roadie over the week­end, CM; we’ll have to head out for a ride soon!

  • http://www.cyclingmaven.com/ Cyc­ling Maven

    Andy sounds like he’s onto it. Either that or his fan club have are on the loose.. :-D

    Head­ing to TDU next week kitty kat, so after that for sure.

  • gplama

    Say g’day to Lance. I’m sure you’ll have a ball. *boom tish*.

    ;)

  • Tim G

    Don’t be silly mate — far easier to whinge and whine about every­one buy­ing their gear online at half the price rather than actu­ally value-add from your phys­ical, local and in-person presence!

  • matt­sta

    Great blog.

    Here is an email that I was amazed to received from a LBS its email list. If only they fol­lowed what was out­lined in this blog.

    Dear XXXXXXX,
    It is a decision that I have am not happy to make but I
    feel enough is enough.

    Due to your com­plete lack of sup­port with your online pur­chas­ing I am
    can­cel­ling your XXXXXXX mem­ber­ship, you can return your Team cloth­ing and I
    will refund your $200.

    As you can see I have CC’d a lot of people with this email to try and get
    every­one to under­stand my decision.

    This past year I have sold my house, car , changed my children’s school and
    tipped in over $100,000 of my own money to try and keep the shop going so
    that the local area has a bike shop they can come to.

    I am well aware that things are a lot cheaper online, but I think it would
    prob­ably take XXXXXXX to close down before every­one real­izes how much of a pain
    in the arse it would be to try and get your bike fixed at the other bike
    shops,I.e., XXXXXXX.

    Yes­ter­day was the final straw, 1st the deraill­leur I priced for you was
    only $40 more that you could buy it online (and came with 3 year war­ranty),
    and I was going to fit it for free (as part of the mem­ber­ship agree­ment). I
    then offered you that I buy it online and fit it for you $50 cheaper then
    you had found it for, and that still wasn’t good enough. All I get left with
    is your bike and you expect me to get your brakes work­ing again for the cost
    of a couple of seals, ands lets not for­get the $1000’s I’ve saved you on
    bikes , gear and labour over the years.

    This isn’t the first time you have you have com­pletely used us, buy­ing a
    new bike at an other shop and then walk­ing it in to XXXXXXX the day you
    pur­chased it and expect me to get it work­ing for you , on the spot, or the
    times you have turned up to XXXXXXX organ­ized rides wear­ing Tor­pedo 7 clothing.

    I know it’s a free coun­try and you are now free to do what ever you like.
    THIS IS A MESSAGE TO EVERYONE, YOU MIGHT SAVE 10–20-30 DOLLARS BUYING
    ONLINE, NOW MULTIPLY THAT BY 10 TIMES THEN MULTIPLY THAT EVEN JUST BY THE
    AMOUNT OF PEOPLE IN THIS EMAIL AND YOU WILL START TO GET SOME IDEA OF HOW
    MUCH THIS HAMMERS ME AND MY BUSINESS.

    I thought that the XXXXXXX mem­ber­ship would be a win for you and a win for
    me, but in this case it is clearly not work­ing and you are abus­ing the
    concept and using me. 95% of the oth­ers that have joined have seen the
    advant­ages of the mem­ber­ship and it’s been work­ing to help them and the
    shop.

    I no longer wish to fix your bike , have you as a cus­tomer or have you
    involved in any of our organ­ized rides.

    Regards XXXXXXX

  • gplama

    If the stor­ies within are cor­rect, the owner/ranter has a good point. Hav­ing some kind of arrange­ment with a store then buy­ing things else­where, like a whole bike?!?. Poor form, and its no won­der he wanted to part ways. These are the exact issues that arise with any kind of retail ‘agree­ment’. They’re out to make money, you’re out to save yours, two very dif­fer­ent goals. I might write an art­icle on this topic one day.

    Oh, and we save don’t 10–20-30 DOLLARS online, we save thou­sands. ;)

  • http://www.cyclingmaven.com/dig-a-little-deeper/ Dig A Little Deeper

    […] If I Owned a Bike Shop – The inter­net is here to stay so why fight it. Flow with it. Do what you can and add value to your cus­tom­ers where you can. There’s no point get­ting all bit­ter at people shop­ping online. […]

  • Bike2010

    I’m bit late on the post, but hop­ing for some feed­back as most people here seem to under­stand the value a LBS provides.

    What I am try­ing to work out is how we can get more people to see what we do as adding value. We are heav­ily involved with the com­munity, get fant­astic res­ults from our cus­tomer ser­vice sur­veys and we know we are good at what we do. We focus on customer’s for life, and while we know people have a right to shop where they want, when the want, we are often amazed by the fact people don’t seem to under­stand that our advice, and recom­mend­a­tions are worth some­thing. Let me give you 3 examples that have happened in the last month:

    1. Cus­tomer came in for a wheel rebuild, which we could have charged him for and he couldn’t get it online. We assessed the wheel and made the recom­mend­a­tion that the true would help, but not fix and he should get him­self a new wheel. We gave him some options, and gave our recom­mend­a­tions based on all of the inform­a­tion we have gathered on this cus­tomer over the last year. He was racing that week­end, so we loaned him a wheel, at no charge. The next week he saw the wheel we recom­men­ded online cheaper than what we quoted ($60), so he bought it online.

    2. A cus­tomer who layby’d a new bike with us was super keen. He has been a cus­tomer of ours for 2 years, we actu­ally encour­aged him to get into cyc­ling. As a good will ges­ture we allowed him to take the bike before the layby was paid off, essen­tially offer­ing him credit on our risk. He was super excited — then in shar­ing his excite­ment pos­ted on his face­book page that he loves his bike and has giddlyly spent over $500 on wiggle to trick it all up.

    3. A cus­tomer who lit­er­ally lives 2 streets away from the shop, who had a bit of an old dun­ger race bike. Over the 2 years she came to us we would help her out at all hours of the day (can you open early, I need to grab a tube before I head to work — yes our top cus­tom­ers have our mobiles so they can reach us after hours) She got all of her ser­vcing through us, and a lot of the time, we would help her out with free gear tunes or help with 2nd hand parts. From a busi­ness per­spect­ive, this was all part of adding value, as she often said she couldn’t wait till she upgraded her bike. Well she got her new bike — not from our bike shop, but from one down the road that had a spe­cial on. Not that she gave us the oppor­tun­ity to quote. It was built poorly and she has had dra­mas with it which guess what, she expects us to fix.

    So, while I am open to com­pet­i­tion and believe in a free mar­ket, I can’t think of any other busi­ness where people sit inside the shop drink­ing cof­fee, ask­ing ques­tions, tak­ing in the know­ledge of years of exper­i­ence and then buy else­where. Ima­gine if you sat in the Accountant’s office ask­ing and tak­ing note of all the info you need then toddle off and com­plete your tax return your­self! The online thing is com­plic­ated — and isn’t the fairest on retail­ers, but that isn’t the consumer’s fault. But is sav­ing $5 on a pair of gloves worth more than sup­port­ing the LBS who donates a bike each year to their kid’s school for a raffle, who pays their GST and con­trib­utes on a greater level to the local com­munity they live in?

    So how do we remind people without being rude that there is value in what we do? How when we put everything we have on the line to offer the best pos­sible ser­vice, can we not take it personally?

  • http://www.pricewiki.com/ Wil­liam Price

    Good post. I just read an art­icle dis­cuss­ing the dif­fer­ences of prices of bike from dif­fer­ent coun­tries. I hope that it help read­ers to com­pare where bikes are cheaper. This is the art­icle that I’ve read http://lovingthebike.com/uncategorized/world-bike-costs

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