Over the last year or so I’ve been thinking about idea that might help local bike shops maintain a decent level of income despite increase in online sales taking away some of their potential revenue.

Are your servicing diaries completely full or do you have spare capacity to do servicing? And am I right in thinking that servicing is a fairly decent source of income or is it actually pretty crap at delivering any form of profit?

Normally booked up a week or two in advance this time of year. Add into that trying to fit in walk ins and any issues with new builds I means we’re pretty full.

So your plan for lbs’ to make more profit is ‘Do more of what you already do’?

patented that idea, have you?

Yes, that’s exactly it. That’s typically how most businesses make money. Do what they already do but more effectively. Not meant to be a new idea. Just an idea at this stage. But if all the local bike shops are all nailing it and not closing down due to increasing prevalence of people shopping online then I’ll just crack on with something else. Just asking the question.

LBS’s are not all the same, some work well at one aspect others go a different way about it.
Anyway I’m guessing it’s one of…
Servicing collection and delivery – man in van collects bikes and finds a service slot for them
Online booking
Receive online parts and bikes for fitting/building

You’re assuming that all LBS are equal – I’m not. I don’t want my bike to be collected and sent to a random shop, with a random monkey to work on it, thanks very much. I guess I might make an exception for a really simple job, but I’m not going to put their bike into an LBS for a trivial piece of work anyway.

trying not to make any assumptions at the moment (apologies, realise it may have come across that way!) just trying to see if there’s something in the idea of helping create a marketplace for servicing. Sounds like there isn’t so far 😉

What would, perhaps, be better would be a really good register of mechanics with recommendations and reviews. Once you have their contacts, it’s usually only a few minutes work to call around and see who has the best availability.

Personally, I tend to have a better experience with indy mechanics than the mystical “back room” at various LBS. I rarely use them (last one was a *very* stubborn seat post!) but it’s always good to have personal recommendations or experience with a specific mechanic.

Funnily enough my initial thinking was actually around indy mechanics but then I started to think this may negatively impact on the local bike shop model which I was hoping could be protected. Maybe there’s a happy balance to be struck

I may be wrong, but chatting to my LBS I get the impression that the servicing side of things is very busy, but barely breaks even and is only really there to get people into the shop!

im never negative but your idea sucks

I may be wrong, but chatting to my LBS I get the impression that the servicing side of things is very busy, but barely breaks even and is only really there to get people into the shop!

some shops only do/ specialise in servicing so that can’t be right – or not in all cases.

Or why not a mechanic that owns a van and comes and services your bike while your at work, drinking coffee or whatever.No actual shop so less overheads possibly and fully mobile.

Lots of down time driving between jobs though, either the customer pays for that, making the job expensive, or your hourly rate over the whole day is 2/5 of sweet FA

Are your servicing diaries completely full or do you have spare capacity to do servicing?

Currently 2.5 weeks worth of work booked in, could take in more but we haven’t got the space to store any more service bikes. We need a bigger shop

This time of year service works pretty full , but never have work booked more than a week in advance.

Not sure why just never have but always busy with walk in jobs on top.

Wait a month or two and ask the same question it will be very different for many

I suspect the lag time is the determinant here. People will wait two weeks but no longer, so if a shop is maxed out, they will go somewhere else where the wait is less than two weeks. For the jobs I don’t do (not many), that would be too long a wait.

I suppose the walk in jobs plus the planned jobs lead to the wait time.

How about if there was some kind of app like Just Eat where at a glance you can see which shops specialise is certain services or stock, and which ones are available for booking bikes in for servicing. Pay via the app for the base cost of a service to avoid no shows.

I suppose the walk in jobs plus the planned jobs lead to the wait time.

We try to build in contingency time for stubborn job such as BB that are welded in etc & those “while I’m here can you look at X” jobs when they only came in for a cable replacement & end up with nearly a full strip down. We call them the stealth full service jobs

Or why not a mechanic that owns a van and comes and services your bike while your at work, drinking coffee or whatever.No actual shop so less overheads possibly and fully mobile.

I know 2 folks that have did that, neither did well from it.

I know 2 folks that have did that, neither did well from it.

Not doubting you, but the chap I know who does it, is still going well after about 10 years………

I expect a lot comes down to the local market