Let The LBS Speak

As cyc­lists and con­sumers, the inter­net is giv­ing us options.

Unlike pre­vi­ously, we can now order tyres, tubes, clothing–whatever at the click of a few but­tons.

Trust is gain­ing momentum on an unpre­ced­en­ted scale with the online retail­ers and more people are doing it than ever.

What does this mean for the Local Bike Shop?

For my part, hope­fully it makes them think about cus­tomer ser­vice. While many don’t have con­trol over price–they cer­tainly do have con­trol over how they treat their cus­tom­ers. I see this conun­drum as an opportunity–an oppor­tun­ity to innovate.

Although I’ve gone on the offens­ive in pre­vi­ous posts on this topic, my heart is actu­ally with the local bike shops. I’d much prefer to shop loc­ally and have a really good exper­i­ence than shop online. There’s some­thing nice about touch­ing, see­ing the products, talk­ing bikes with the owner etc.

I pos­ted this on Face­book last week and it had some inter­est­ing responses from friends who own local bike shops themselves.

It got me think­ing about what chal­lenges they face so I asked a ques­tion on Twitter.

And these were just some of the response I received.

I posed some ques­tions to LBS owner Stu­art Pass­more from Perth. He runs a local bike shop there called Glen Parker South.

This was his response. Thanks for tak­ing the time Stuart.

Glen Parker South Interview

[CM] Is the online cyc­ling trade hav­ing a notice­able effect on your business?

[SP] At times a def­in­ite yes. There are some items that we just cant be com­pet­it­ive on at a price only level. Some items are worse than oth­ers though.

[CM] Why?

[SP] There are some items that we just cant be com­pet­it­ive on at a price only level — some­times its group­sets, some­times tyres, some­times its other things. Every­one one wants to get a bar­gain, par­tic­u­larly with Aus­tralian culture!

[CM] Do you think you have con­trol over this? What do you have con­trol of?

[SP] The pri­cing aspect is hard to have any con­trol over. There are some very good tax perks in Ire­land for instance, which gives people in busi­ness over there big incent­ives. We cant con­trol the volume of product they get from pro teams either. The Aus mar­ket is very small com­pared to world wide and this hurts in terms of volume as well. What we do have con­trol over is the qual­ity of ser­vice and mech­an­ics that we provide. We can con­trol the mar­gin we make to some degree and we do sac­ri­fice mar­gin to make sales. We can con­trol fixed costs.

We can def­in­itely con­trol our ser­vice levels. We can con­trol our product know­ledge. We always try our hard­est to the best we can, although we real­ize this is not good enough for everyone!

[CM] Who are your most valu­able cus­tom­ers? Mums and dads? Road­ies? MTBers or commuters?

[SP] All of my cus­tom­ers are valu­able, whether they ride road, fam­ily, MTB or all bikes! Most of my cus­tom­ers are return cus­tom­ers. We don’t advert­ise, so I rely soley on ser­vice and word of mouth.

[CM] What are the bene­fits of buy­ing from an LBS as opposed to the Internet?

[SP] Firstly, all com­ments relate only to our shop, Glen Parker Cycles South. In no way are these the opin­ions of any other store.

In our shop, the bene­fits are that your get friendly and pro­fes­sional ser­vice. Advice is free — product know­ledge is free. Need to know the dif­fer­ence between BB30 and BB86 — we can help. We gen­er­ally fit items for free. Need to swap a bar or stem on a new bike, no prob­lems and no charge. We use the products we sell and we will tell you like it is, whether its good or bad! Loy­alty attracts fur­ther dis­count­ing. War­ranty is also provided and taken care of for you.

Need some­thing done in a hurry, we will try and oblige you. Need a bike fit, we can help here too. Need some wheels to bor­row for that spe­cial race — Id love to help if I can. These are the tan­gible bene­fits. We do house calls — whatever it takes most of the time to help. Cus­tom wheel builds — we can do it. Some­times its the little things that make a big dif­fer­ence, par­tic­u­larly with high end bikes now days. Know­ing where to grease cables, how to get the smoothest shift and so on.

The intan­gible bene­fits are know­ing that your money keeps local people in a job, friend­ships and shop cul­ture that are built up over time. Sup­port­ing the Aus­tralian eco­nomy. For some people, these are not import­ant, but for oth­ers it is. For instance, we sup­port a break­fast club at a local school, which provides break­fast for kids that may some­times go without. Without cus­tom­ers we could not do this. Some­times there is more to life than just get­ting the cheapest price — but that’s only my perspective.

[CM] Why shouldn’t Aus­tralian cyc­lists shop online?

[SP] I don’t believe they SHOULDN’T shop online. Its everyone’s right to spend their money that they earn as they see fit. There are some great deals to be had and some things are just too cheap to pass up. But I would always recom­mend cus­tom­ers check with their LBS first to see if the can at least be com­pet­it­ive price wise. They may be surprised.

I always encour­age people to spend money loc­ally, because I believe keep­ing your money loc­ally does help loc­ally. I do mean loc­ally as in your local sub­urbs or at least your state.

[CM] Is there any­thing else that you would like to add?

[SP] I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the LBS. People are cor­rect though, that ser­vice is the key. How­ever, we cant make every­one happy all the time, even though we try. Case in point — you may want your ser­vice done that day. We may have 10 other jobs booked in. We may just not be able to do it, or we may have to charge you extra to get it done out­side of nor­mal hours and for some people, this is unsat­is­fact­ory. We are sur­viv­ing in a very cut­throat envir­on­ment at the moment. I have 3 other LBS within a 5km radius from me. We don’t advert­ise, but our cus­tomer base con­tin­ues to grow slowly. We don’t suit people who are look­ing the cheapest price all of the time.

Also, I think that we only ever see the “deals” that come from the inter­net. Ive had quite a num­ber of cus­tom­ers with “deals” that were not such a good deal after it arrived. Ive got one cus­tomer who has been wait­ing 9 months for a bike to be delivered, which he has paid for in full. Ive got a cus­tomer that got dud­ded on a set of wheels. I could go on, but these never seem to get repor­ted as it is human nature to only report the bar­gains and not the times we’ve been duped! We hate eat­ing humble pie!

Also, we here at GPC South are NOT per­fect. We make mis­takes and some­times even though we try our hard­est, we fall short of the stand­ards we like to provide to our cus­tom­ers. I’m sure that this hap­pens at other LBS too, so if you some­times don’t get the ser­vice you require, talk to your LBS. Talk to the owner or man­ager. Most times, I think you’ll find them apo­lo­getic and will do any­thing to make up for it. I know we do.

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Thanks again to Stu­art for tak­ing the time to answer these ques­tions and present a per­spect­ive from a local bike shop owner. For the detail involved in these answers, clearly he’s a guy who’s pas­sion­ate about the industry and how his actions affect his customers.

If you’re in Perth, drop down to Glen Park­ers South and men­tion this art­icle. (no he’s not pay­ing me or vica versa)

How can your local bike shop win/keep your busi­ness?

Safe rid­ing.

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