4 ms·

The bike business is funny, right? It's one of those businesses where you really need to find your niche in order to succeed. If you think you're gonna survive

by krooj 6y ago

The bike business is funny, right? It's one of those businesses where you really need to find your niche in order to succeed. If you think you're gonna survive off a franchise store or something in a strip mall, you will die. Some models that I've seen weather online retail are either going after a captive audience, such as commuters in a city, MTB shops here in Santa Cruz or they cater to super, super high end customers that are paying for an experience (La Biciletta/Blacksmith in Toronto). Lotta shops make up for retail on service as well, but yet again, that requires the captive audience. In regards to dirt cheap OEM parts from Europe, that's largely stopped. Most of those online retailers won't ship Shimano groupsets to NA anymore and while you can find good deals online, I tend to see them being sold from US-based companies. In any case, with the way manufacturers have shifted away from standards, being your own home mechanic has gotten prohibitively expensive, with the need for various presses and extraction tools, etc... I tend to see many more high-end factory bikes on the road than bespokes and forget doing your own suspension work on modern MTBs...

trentnix 6y ago
In regards to dirt cheap OEM parts from Europe, that's largely stopped. That is excellent news for bike shops. I just hope it's not too little, too late. It kinda defeats the narrative from Shimano and others it was legally impossible to do so, though.
lhoff 6y ago
The ironic thing about the dirt cheap OEM parts from europe ruining local business is, its happening in europe as well. If a local shop orders parts from lets say shimano it must be bought from the official shimano importer. All while the online shops import it themselves and undercut the prices by a lot. I once wanted to buy a new bearing for the crankset and my bike was already disassembled. So i went to the local shop to avoid waiting for shipment (was before next/same day delivery was a thing in germany). The price there was about 50 or 60€ while the online price was something in the 20th. I talked to the owner what the reason for that big of a difference and he showed me his official B2B catalogue. It was basically the price he asked for. So he wouldn't even make money out of it if I would have bought it there. He recommended to just buy it online which I then did.

by krooj 6y ago

trentnix 6y ago

In regards to dirt cheap OEM parts from Europe, that's largely stopped. That is excellent news for bike shops. I just hope it's not too little, too late. It kinda defeats the narrative from Shimano and others it was legally impossible to do so, though.

lhoff 6y ago

The ironic thing about the dirt cheap OEM parts from europe ruining local business is, its happening in europe as well. If a local shop orders parts from lets say shimano it must be bought from the official shimano importer. All while the online shops import it themselves and undercut the prices by a lot. I once wanted to buy a new bearing for the crankset and my bike was already disassembled. So i went to the local shop to avoid waiting for shipment (was before next/same day delivery was a thing in germany). The price there was about 50 or 60€ while the online price was something in the 20th. I talked to the owner what the reason for that big of a difference and he showed me his official B2B catalogue. It was basically the price he asked for. So he wouldn't even make money out of it if I would have bought it there. He recommended to just buy it online which I then did.