Don’t recall seeing this article before (did a search)

How do bike shops keep their workers?

Must be powerful job satisfaction.

Until an aggressive STW nong walks in the door… 🙂

If the internet sites keep taking market share we won’t have to worry about bike shop wages as they will all be closed. The last thing bike shops need is pressure to pay higher wages to all their employees, we should be supporting small businesses via online sales taxes.

interestingly i had this conversation just yesterday with another employee of a shop i worked in in days gone by.

He is no longer an employee there – after many years – he did not like what head office were dictating and voted with his feet.

I worked there for 2 months and could see that there were significant accountancy based barriers in place of providing good service in the name maximize profit at the expense of customer satisfaction.

How ever i digress. We both went in as customers at different points recently and were shocked at how much poorer the service had become to the point of where the floor staff could not furnish me with a road brake cable without getting a mechanic.

My friend still has some contacts within and it turns out that management no longer seek skilled enthusiastic staff and just want warm body’s – and the staff they are getting just view it as another job – to quote him ” they are just another shop – they are as viable as working in spar to them”

the crux of it for both of us is – why would you ? i mean i worked in shops for many years for me the wages were pretty shite – how ever because my main expenditure was on bikes – it balanced out to be a decent wage as bike bits were trade + vat. If you dont cycle – why would you do it – whats the draw as even for working in a shop the wages are poor and the expectation of your customers is pretty high- you need a working knowledge. its not beeping items through a till.

beginning of the end for them i fear/hope.

another big chain manages to work round this issue and ive always been plesently surprised when i make the trek across town to see them – how ever they are a nightmare to get to. – i travel in the other direction now and go to the mom and pop shop. Yes pop is grumpy/stressed sometimes but on the whole service is more consistent and they have a half an idea what it is i want and i dont usually get the glazed look.

we should be supporting small businesses via online sales taxes.

Small businesses also sell online.

I’d say the biggest threat to small bike shops is from the big-shed bike retailers.

@the-muffin yes some small shops do sell online, I’ve bought stuff from 18-bikes, there could be an allowance for that but I’d wager a (say) 10% online sales tax wouldn’t impact the that much, it’s the wiggle/cry/bike-discount/amazon I’m thinking of

As trail-rat says a lot of bike shop employees use the staff discount as justification for the wages, my daughter did much the same taking a lower paid part time job at a fashion brand she liked vs working for Hobbs

Evans-sales staff £13,520.Mechanic £14,560 (in Brighton!!).

@Ror – I calculate that about 39 weeks work assuming 8hr day and minimum wage ? What are the hours quoted for Evans for those salaries ?

Having recently had experience of Evans appalling application process, I also hope that they close down as a whole.

Still satisfied to use my lbs one man band or close to in order to get my fix (pun intended).

Even my lbs bloke mentioned to me to go get those 29er stans rims for £47.95 delivered next day as that was too good a deal not to miss.

Long live the honest genuine know a bike shop bloke who employs a couple at the most and to keep costs down as much as possible.

The major players online and in store need to ”get real” about who they employ and what they pay.
false economy just hiring any old muppet who’s looking for a pay packet to then show no interest/knowledge for the customer.

jambalya – are you calculating that over 7 days or 5….

i calculate it to be 6.50 an hour or 7 quid in brighton on 8 hour days on 5/7 rotation over 52 weeks.

overtime was always worth while though – time and half if you worked on your days off

FWIW i was getting more than that in the aforementioned shop i worked in 7 years ago and still considered it a poor wage against living costs.

http://www.latestvacancies.com/evans-cycles/default-new.asp
One opened locally.I considered applying for the workshop manager role.The pay was considerably more than the lbs average but then every other (non management) role was minimum wage and/or part time.How are you supposed to a)attract decent staff b)actually motivate them to to give a sh@t.

I dunno, but I popped into the Reading branch the other day to pick up some stuff ordered online.

Contrary to expectations, it was as good an experience as any LBS visit, except I left without the feeling of being ultimately shafted for some part or other.

What did surprise me was the staff seemed to be
a) cyclists
b) not teenagers
c) not unmotivated people in a McJob.

Without trying to be too condescending, why would you do it? Yes it’s working in the bike industry which is your hobby, but surely it’s the equivalent of working in New Look and saying you work in fashion, or the TV department at John Lewis and working in Media.

If the internet sites keep taking market share we won’t have to worry about bike shop wages as they will all be closed. The last thing bike shops need is pressure to pay higher wages to all their employees, we should be supporting small businesses via online sales taxes.

1 Customers buy from where they decide, they’re buying more online now.
2 All employers will have to pay higher wages, both local and online.
3 How do you define a small business vs an online business – they could be both, and do you also think that buying your holiday online should mean a subsidy to the local travel agent?

also tbh pretty much any non-management role in ANY retail operation is going to be paid at the minimum the employer can get away with

we should be supporting small businesses via online sales taxes.

They are already receiving benefits from government as they will be paying part of the salaries by way of tax credits.

any shop treating its self as a retail outlet and using lowest common denominator staff to run it is already on the downward spiral.

as roscharch our man in industry well knows – if you dont have good mechanics your on a hiding to nothing.

you cant sell bikes without a good mechanic.

a good mechanic or two can outstrip your sales profit quite easily and create a USP that the internet cannot offer

yet ime the chains seem to focus on sales/the easy money and let the workshop go to ratshit.

I worked for a certain South Yorkshire based chain that suffers awfully from this. Minimum wage means they attract people who will use it as a stop gap, filling in time when they aren’t in college, waiting for another job, waiting to go to uni and so on. No time and a half on Sundays, working a 6 day week one week out of four for what was barely £13k a year.

Because the staff are so poorly paid it’s difficult for them to put their heart in it, stay longer if a customer needs help at 6pm on a Friday evening or go the extra mile. I came into it bright eyed and bushy tailed from working in a small LBS where the pay was more (but still sub £15k) and you were looked after well and it was pretty demoralising. Mechanic turnover was high, because there weren’t a large number of high-wage full time staff but minimum wage part timers consistency of customer service was varied and people wouldn’t know about customer requests or queries because half the staff weren’t there half the time.

Interesting that EBC are noted as being a higher payer in the report as they’re one that I’ve noticed a difference in. But I’ve also had excellent service in every Evans I’ve been to.

Given the number of moans on here about rip offs for repairs you can see why bikes shops struggle to make any money never mind raise wages.
People just do not understand what goes into paying someone a wage and running a workshop.

Although I think its 7.85 an hr right? Its not much is it.

Round here I know that well qualified (ie gas safe reg) plumbers get 15 an hr + 1.5 times OT.
Which means they make about 30k a year if they do a bit of OT.

But a gas safe plumber is qualified and in possession of a specialist and in demand skill

Pay in retail, which I would class the bike shop as, is poor full stop. Similar to lots of general clerical work

“Pay in retail, which I would class the bike shop as, is poor full stop. Similar to lots of general clerical work”

does a car mechanic work in retail ?

go get a retail assistant from next to bleed your disk brake.

and your next arguement is that bikes are not complex and dont need specialist skills …. neither are cars – ive built one of them from components as well

The UK model needs a kick up the arse, I was earning the equivalent of £15.5k as a sales assistant 8years ago when I worked in a bike shop in Perth W.A. plus staff discount on top.

I’m not sure but when I worked as a mechanic I was told the same biz rate where paid on the work shop as the rest of the unit so the rates per sq ft as it was a subpart of a retail unit. This means biz rate where very high for a whorkshop type enviroment. Hence this contributes to the high overheads of providing repairs. Most we ever took in one day in labour wsa about 550 between two of us (Camden so very bussy), other days it may only be 200 odd 250 between the two of us plus a few safty checks on bike if they were sold, or a few bike built for stock. 250 quid does not pay much wadges after overheads of running a workshop.

Personaly the best thing to do if you are a mechanic in a bussy city is set up your own small work shop with a mate. I knew someone who did this and they could charge cheaper rates and make a good proffit. Only carriered basic spares like cable, cassettes, limited range of tyre and tubes. Ordered in as needed other items. This only works in a bussy city though as you need to have the large commuting base to give you good solid bread and butter work.

thebrick – that would be the basis of my entire business model – how ever current unstable economic climate here and high cost of premises near town are highly prohibitive

The cost of premises is the biggest problem for “one man band” shops and businesses, not wages. It is another aspect of the ludicrous property boom over the past 30 years.

Christ that’s really poor.

In 1999 working for a Hi-Fi shop my wage was £11k but I got some commission on top and I wasn’t expected to repair the hi-fis for that money either!

A bike mechanic isn’t “unskilled” labour either. I’m reasonably competent and confident at fixing bikes these days but its only because I’ve been learning from my own mistakes for the past 10 years.

Genuinely surprised at how poor the pay is.

“Pay in retail, which I would class the bike shop as, is poor full stop. Similar to lots of general clerical work”

does a car mechanic work in retail ?

go get a retail assistant from next to bleed your disk brake.

and your next arguement is that bikes are not complex and dont need specialist skills …. neither are cars – ive built one of them from components as well[/quote]

Have you seen how much car mechanics earn? You’d earn more as a plumber!

I’m not saying it’s not hard. I’m saying it’s in a sector that has relatively low margins and not a huge amount of demand. The average member of the public is happy on a low cost bike or BSO. They have no desire to spend a lot of getting their bike looking after

And cars are definitely more complex than bikes. They’re becoming increasingly clever, automated and electronic, which makes tinkering with them harder than when they were mechanical only.

Having worked in a couple of bike shops and knowin the margins I think a living wage would be hard to pay for most local stores.
Even multi nationals would find it hard to pay over £7 and rising to £9? Not possible.

It’s not even be living wage that’s the whole issue but the knock on effect. Pay your shop staff that wage fine but how much extra can you pay the key holder/assistant manager/manager.

Soon enough everyone wants/needs more and it all falls apart.

The increased minimum wadge was ment to at least partialy ment to be compensated for by other tax breaks.

The staff in many Evans branches are complete crap. I went to the Spitalfields one the other day, City location, lots of shiny bikes and people spending lots.

Me: “have you got the new 9-series Trek Madone?”
Man: “err… Yes. here’s one:”
Me: “that’s a Domane” (and an entry level one at that)
Man: “oh, sorry, ask man 2” (I forget his name)
Me to man 2: “have you got the new 9-series Trek Madone?”
Man 2: “err yeah… There’s one over there” (points nonchalantly at a row of bikes)

As I wandered over to the display it was evident there were no such bikes, and man 2 had walked off in the other direction.

Why can’t they say either: “d’you know, I’m not sure”, or “no”, or “sorry, not sure what that is, can you help me out a bit?”

Any of those would be wildly preferable to a fobbing off.

a good mechanic or two can outstrip your sales profit quite easily and create a USP that the internet cannot offer

Localish place to us has an ex-Olympian as the mechanic who is know for attention to detail – place is rammed with bikes in for repairs. It’s where I go for anything big and I live over an hour away.

The staff in many Evans branches are great. I went to the Sheffield one and they were really helpful.

Of course, it could just be that one branch.

Benp1 you miss my point…….

Yes a plumber earns more than a mechanic. But a car mechanic(i have a fair few mech friends and 30k isnt unattainable at a good garage) earns alot more than a retail assistant.

Now is a bike mechanic more in line with a retail asisstant going beep beep at the till … Or a car mechanic….

Not like bikes are not getting more complex as we go along too remember.

The staff in many Evans branches are complete crap.

Well the ones I’ve met at the Chill factor store have been very good and knowledgeable when I’ve needed help. 🙂

CAr mechnic the sky is the limit really, AA guys earn a hell of a lot more than 30k, and those F1 mechanics must be making bank

But a car mechanic(i have a fair few mech friends and 30k isnt unattainable at a good garage) earns alot more than a retail assistant.

£30k is very high for a mechanic, most are on about £20k even after all the training courses and manufacturer certifications etc.

I think London Evans stores have a much higher turnover of staff and as such less worry about quality!

I agree most branches are good, but thinking about it, the three London ones I’ve used recently – Fenchurch Street, Spitalfields and City Thameslink they’ve all been really shit. Waterloo are better certainly.

@trail_rat – I’m cleverly changing tack here 😀

My mechanic retail sales thing was more referring to a car salesman vs a car mechanic. Car sales isn’t paid well either. More than a basic retail assistant, but still fairly low. Unless you’re selling a lot of cars. I’d say car mechanic is more difficult than car selling, but mechanic is paid less than car sales.

Probably not a relevant argument though….

A greater proportion of cyclists will consider tinkering with their bike than drivers tinkering with their car (IMO). Hydraulic brakes and indexing gears are as difficult as the averagebike gets. I suspect there are very few average bikes on this forum.

You might play around with squeeky brakes on a bike, not on a car. Bottom bracket squeek and you’re in a bike shop. But, conceptually, it’s only a bike, so people don’t assume it’s difficult. I’m not saying it’s easy though, I’m sure there’s an unappreciation for how tricky some bits can be

Main way to make a decent crust is start up on your own I think.

badllama – Member
The staff in many Evans branches are complete crap.
Well the ones I’ve met at the Chill factor store have been very good and knowledgeable when I’ve needed help.

If that’s the one in Glasgow/Braehead I was talking to someone recently who was about to leave a call centre job. He told me the Braehead branch receives more complaints than any other 🙄 Having visited a few times I can understand why…
The Edinburgh one however was a positive experience 😀

The UK model needs a kick up the arse, I was earning the equivalent of £15.5k as a sales assistant 8years ago when I worked in a bike shop in Perth W.A. plus staff discount on top.

Australia is a heavily unionized country and the labour market is highly regulated. It’s not a coincidence that wages and conditions are better there (or if you’re a capitalist, the costs are higher).