I’ve started looking at new bikes recently and I will have to make visits to at least 5 different shops.

So it got me wondering, what determines the brands that a bike shop carry?

Can bike shops just approach any brand/distributor and say they want to stock the brand, or do the brands/distributors control the supply the other way round?

Also do bike shops only stock brands they think are good, or ones they think they will sell most of, or the ones that give them the biggest margin?

Just curious really…

bit of both

some in demand suppliers will only supply if your not near another

some shops will deal in dirty tactics to steal brands from other shops

some suppliers will refuse to deal with certain shops

some shops default on payments and suppliers wont deal with them again …

generally a shop will ask a company if it can supply its bikes – a rep will come round – have a nosey about check the shop is a legit shop and then they will work on terms

business sense would say as a shop you want a mix of easy to sell (good reputation) coupled with good margin…..

Yep, that covers it!

Ah ok so Bike Shop sales staff are just the same as car salesman then ie dont beleive a word they say!

I think that is unfair. If you check the “mystery shopper” towards the back of What Mountain Bike you will see that a good majority of shop staff know what they are talking about and will guide the customer to a product that will fit their requirements. The difference is a car salesman doesn’t expect to see that customer again for quite some time. A sales person in a bike shop is trying to build a relationship of trust with the customer as the customer is likely to want more bits in a much shorter time frame.

All IMHO obviously.