Do the distributors not give shops credit terms?
Yes - the more you buy, the cheaper the product gets. However CRC etc. often get preferential rates unavailable to LBSs due to the volume they are buying, or even circumnavigate distributors completely if buying OEM for bike brands. I imagine (and this [i]is[/i] speculation) that excess then gets sold as grey imports (without boxes or instructions).
Didn't Wiggle start out as Butler Cycles in Pompey?
I believe it did. I believe it's also now owned by an investment company.
As a small independent bike workshop, we _do_ buy some of our stuff from Wiggle / CRC / whoever's cheapest, mainly when our usual distributors are out of stock and we need a part urgently, but sometimes also for big-ticket items that Wiggle's buying power means they can sell way cheaper than the distributors. (but they still presumably somehow scrape a profit.)
I have no problem at all with customers buying stuff online and bringing it to us to fit - they recognise that they're paying us for our expertise and / or specialist tools and / or the convenience of not doing it themselves.
There's a quote somewhere on the first page,
You, as the consumer, is finding what you need….the LBS is shifting stock…..
...I'm not going to go to a lot of hassle just to "shift stock" if we don't make any margin on it. That margin pays the shop's overheads, including wages, rent, business rates, heat, electricity, water, insurance, broadband, and everything else. If I "shift" £2 million worth of stock, I may get to brag about my high turnover, but if it's cost me £1,999,000 then all that work has paid me and my staff £1000. That doesn't go very far.
I doubt you'll find many business owners who will sign up to a scheme whereby they can sell stuff for little or no margin. Because, basically, there's nothing in it for them. That's not profiteering, that's being realistic about how to run a business.
Thanks for all the feedback guys - very helpful 😀
I'll be working on this over the next few weeks and will post some further thoughts as I go
