I've spent over £5000 on bikes from all three of my most local bike shops, £4000 of which was two bikes from one shop in the space of four months. I'm known by the staff of this shop and the owner has told other customers, in my presence, that people like me start off being customers and very rapidly become friends. Despite this, they've failed on both occasions when I've needed them to back me up when the manufacturer wasn't honouring warranty (and even failed to send a part off for repair until I hassled them), can't "fit me in" when I need some urgent repair work and sell me everything at the over-inflated, labelled price (most recently £30 for 36 spokes).

I'm now fairly proficient at spannering my own bikes and I've come to view a bike as a collection of consumables bolted to a frame, so it's very unlikely I'll use them again for any bike purchase. I tend to go in for manufacturers spares (mech hangers, etc), stuff I need really urgently (which is rare) and odd items of clothing that I need to try on. If I got a smidge of discount (I'm not asking them to match CRC) and a bit better service, I'd be in there all the time.

Have I? Yes, was shop manager for eight years from the day the shop first opened.

need better financial control then

without going into many particulars – someones **** up if your on the stop – yes take your credit terms to their fullest but if your organised you can do this and not end up on the stop.

ok some badly managed shops get them selves into this position – there was one local to me in this situation and it happened regular – and low and behold a few months later he had gone under !

perhaps i was just lucky that my shops have had organised management who werent so horizontally laid back they fell over !

I wonder what happens to the stock in those situations? They probably run down their stock levels and the suppliers whistle/stand in line with the rest of the creditors? (behind the staff/VAT/Taxman) 😐

Its how business works you know. Probably why your not involved in that area anymore as you don't know how to play the game; negotiate discounts, payment terms or margins.

not involved in that game any more because the moneys crap. Shop is still there and is still doing well – and still looks after me most importantly 😉

even as a store manager i wasnt getting good money to live off as thats the bike trade it covered the bills I had 2 options 1 open my own shop which i looked into hard and it took alot of will power not to do that or i had an engineering degree so i decided to use that to potential – overnight doubled my basic wage and trippled it on bonus while reducing my actual working hours and in my eyes job resposibility.

can always come back to the bike trade once ive made my money here

Why not look into supply direct/held by distributors and run a small web/mail order?

See what slow stock they have/need selling off/clearing out and agree item by item pricing then run on a tight margin?

Would this work?

my love for bikes at the moment is purely for riding them with friends and family – dont need to be filling my time with a second job at the moment

im working out of west africa for a couple months anyway as my last 8 months project work is coming to a head and i wanted/my boss suggested that i experiance what goes on at the business end.

Not in Nigeria? 😯

equitorial guinea , malabo – its an island off the coast and you might laugh but i actually quite like it here , if it was a little more military and govermentally stable id think about bringing the missus out here for a holiday she would love it and its pretty cheap to boot.

Living next to a 10000 ft live volcano and working down by the sea.

Ive paid to go worse places !

Another reason a shop may not be able to order something in for you is the following situation.

Small value product < £30, supplier has a minimum order value for carriage paid of £250 (and a carriage charge of £6.50), shop needs nothing else from the supplier. especially when you then ask them to price match, there is no profit in this, infact normally a loss.

It's nothing to do with the account being on stop.

I try to be honest with customers in this situation and suggest that this time they buy online, but I'd be happy to help them out next time. I have some customers who appreciate this and will come back next time.

Hmmm thats a good point on order minimums. Ties up with 'it'll be a couple of weeks'.

and that carriage paid amount depends on time of year as well with certain suppliers too.

summer rate and winter rate.

Some suppliers don't just have a carriage paid threshold, there's actually a minimum order requirement.

I'd love to buy/use my LBS's more often, but find sooner or later they get on my tits.

I'll give you an expample. At the time this was my fave LBS, all my trade was going there. Then I took my bike in for a quick tweak. I was going on a long ride and wanted the gears set up better than I could manage myself (gears were in my blind spot).

So took the bike in, told them what I was after. He then said "anything else wrong with it". I said, "pretty sure everything is ok, but what do you think?".

At that point, he almost lept over the counter, bent the chain off, said it was worn, it wasn't even close to warn. He said it was too short, it wasn't, and the new one he fitted was the same length. He said the casette was worn, the rings were worn……..etc

As I said, i was about to do a long ride, and wanted everything spot on so said OK, crack on a fix everything.

The more I look back and think about it, the more I think he took me for a ride. I'll not go back there.

I do virtually everything myself now. Not because I want to, I'd much prefer to pay someone. But because I can't find anywhere that reaches my (perhaps high) required standards of service.