[Closed] Wiggle buying CRC?

neil the wheel - Member

If you don't stock it, shop round the internet for it. You'll find it cheap enough somewhere to make it worth ordering it in and still make a profit at rrp. And you'll have it in a day or two.

I dont understand - Are you suggesting bike shop owners go online to shop around distributors for a single item, contact the supplier, setup a trade account, wait for the order and then supply and make a profit?

By the time all of that has happened the customers likely gone and ordered it online, or the shops made so little out of the item its not worth bothering with - Time is money.

Or are you suggesting a shop buys from an online retailer and attempts to add a mark-up?

It seems when we talk about bike shops many people forget the shop is there to make profit....think about how a profit can be turned from scavenging the internet to find single parts or suggesting people return in 2 days to pick their item up at a 10% price hike 'for the effort'

Anyway, this is all off topic of the CRC / Wiggle merger which is unlikely in any reality to have any further effect on the LBS model.

Duh, repost.

The LBS in its traditional form is doomed, only 'boutique' shops selling high end parts / builds and providing quality service will survive.

Having a good natter to the owner of my LBS on Saturday, the LBS isn't doomed unless Wiggle/CRC/Whatever they're called suss out how to do repairs and servicing via a broadband connection.

On the contrary - The online market had become so cut-throat that CRC operated on an average profit margin of 5%. You have to sell an awful lot of stuff every day to sustain that.

He reckons that having weathered the worst of it, the LBS's still going will be fine, as they work on more real world business model of margins higher than 5%.

Lets face it, there are now a lot more bikes out there, and as i constantly confirm: we all keep breaking stuff.

There will always be a demand for the LBS

There will always be a demand for the *good* LBS. Hopefully the CRC/Wiggle merger will drive a few more of the disinterested, incompetent, shit ones out of business.

There will always be a demand for the *good* LBS. Hopefully the CRC/Wiggle merger will drive a few more of the disinterested, incompetent, shit ones out of business.

I dunno, there's only so cheap you can sell stuff, I doubt the CRC/wiggle behemoth will be that much cheaper than they were individually. Especially when you think that Merlin/Parkers/Ribble/Evans are often even cheaper anyway. If you were already happy paying more at an LBS then this isn't going to change much, unless you lived under a rock and didn't know Wiggle/CRC existed and were only alerted to this fact by the recent news.

[url= http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/merger-to-create-global-champion-approved/019755 ]Merger approved[/url]