Viewing 20 posts - 41 through 60 (of 60 total)
  • Do no LBSs want my trade?….is business that good!?
  • cloudnine
    Free Member

    and that their shops survive on the worship trade.

    They are probably doomed if they are praying for business..

    thestabiliser
    Free Member

    Two.
    Bolts.

    That said an hours workshop time booked to…..
    Two.
    Bolts.

    jamj1974
    Full Member

    They are probably doomed if they are praying for business..

    Indeed! 😉

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    jamj1974
    Full Member

    Sometimes I actually hate installing new shocks. Sometimes the bushings don’t seem to be be sized as accurately as they might be or they were not pressed in correctly and it can be a PITA to sort.

    So, even though I do the vast majority of my own more complex maintenance I can understand the OP’s desire to have it sorted by someone else.

    deviant
    Free Member

    Spev, thats actually very kind of you and sort of why i came on here spouting off….sadly i have a tattoo session booked at 10am but whats the name of your shop for future reference?
    Service like that is worth remembering.

    Drovercycles ditto, cheers guys.

    spev
    Full Member

    Its THEBIKEHUB deviant , always try to help if we can, could probably squeeze it in Monday if that helps

    esselgruntfuttock
    Free Member

    My Lad replaced the brain shock on his Spesh with a brainless one. He ended up taking it to Bike Scene in Guisborough cos the bushings were different, he wasn’t sure so he made sure it was done right. (charged him pittance & gave him a pasty cos he was hungry)
    Same with the OP’s request I’d think. Why don’t one of you lot do it for him?

    PeterPoddy
    Free Member

    Anyone who thinks what he wants to pay a bike shop to do is the same as taking your own steak to a restaurant is clearly insane.

    Go on then, explain the difference.

    poah
    Free Member

    Go on then, explain the difference.

    if you really don’t know the difference there is no point explaining to you as you’d clearly not understand.

    flannol
    Free Member

    Go on then, explain the difference.

    You go to a bike shop for a service, just like a car tyre shop

    You go to a restaurant for an experience (and sometimes memory)

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    You pay for somebody to do things that either you can’t, don’t want to or do not have the tools to do.

    You go to a restaurant for an experience

    I go to eat, sometimes because I can’t be arsed to cook, sometimes because they can do something I can’t and sometimes because I have to.
    It’s all the same thing and the amount of profit from fitting a shock (coupled with the forum post complaining how much it cost you) probably makes sure that it’s not worth getting back to you. Walk in and ask them with the bike. At best it’s asking somebody to swap the hardware over.

    eshershore
    Free Member

    Workshop is the most profitable but it doesn’t generate large revenues like selling bikes or p&a -which are less profitable

    You can complete four £80 services in 6 hours, or sell a £2000 road bike in 1 hour…easy to sell lots of bikes with workshop building out of box with pdi, setup and 1st free service.

    Servicing is profitable but difficult to scale up and it’s time consuming, intensive, dirty work.

    Our workshop is booked up 5 days in advance even this time of year. We certainly fit parts bought online, I often have 1-2 bikes a day being rebuilt with groupset bought online.

    Customer service is key, many shops I’ve worked in its been shockingly poor, bike industry needs to work on it as most of the retail world has moved on!

    We get it wrong from time to time, but are working hard to meet customers expectations,the industry is undergoing a massive transformation with compaction, consolidation and people going to the wall already

    PeterPoddy
    Free Member

    if you really don’t know the difference there is no point explaining to you as you’d clearly not understand.

    Ahh. The old cop-out line

    Go on, try me, because all that says to me is that you’re just trying to sound clever but don’t really have a clue….. 🙂

    You go to a bike shop for a service, just like a car tyre shop

    You go to a restaurant for an experience (and sometimes memory)

    Yup. You could have the same experience supplying your own steak* though, couldn’t you? 🙂
    neither of those points explains the difference.

    Keep trying. 🙂

    Personally, as an LBS mechanic, I think it’s a really good parallel. Describes it well.

    *Probably better. I’ve spent £25 on steak in a posh-ish restaurant and the meat wasn’t as good as I can get myself.

    TimothyD
    Free Member

    Anybody knows that you go to a posh place to eat to enjoy their quality ingredients, and the special way in which they mix them together, and the nice atmosphere of the place and the quality of service too, which is a context into which it’d be impossible to go in and ask them to cook an Aldi steak: It’d be part of ‘how they do things’ to order food only from certain places so they can be of the quality they want.

    For a bike shop, they have a work shop where they can bolt parts together, and some of these parts are bought from them for which they probably won’t charge a fee, and some of them customers bring in to be bolted together – for which they’ll charge a fee to cover their time and perhaps use of tools & grease etc too (I’ve never worked in a bike workshop so don’t know about tool use etc being included).

    The two are quite different, and it’s nuts with a capital N to conflate the two. 🙂

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    Anybody knows that you go to a posh place to eat to enjoy

    For a bike shop, they have a work shop where they can bolt parts together,

    The two are quite different, and it’s nuts with a capital N to conflate the two.

    I thought we were comparing restaurants (service industry) with bike shops (service industry) both doing things the right skilled person could do at home in a different setting.
    Not all restaurants are posh, for me it’s a very valid comparison
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    TimothyD
    Free Member

    They’re both skilled people, and you’re paying for their skills in a bike shop if you pay them to fit something, which I don’t see as taking the mickey, since you’re paying for their expertise if you’re paying them to fit something.

    I do go to my local bike shops first if I’m after something, and ring and see if they have it, and I’ve never been rebuffed when asking for something to be fitted too.

    Edit: A late family friend used to make me want to smile, because by her 60’s she was an amazing cook, and she’d talk about being able to cook something just as nice or better at home, she almost created a rod for own back by becoming a very good cook when it came to eating out. It’s something I aspire to, to get that good at cooking. 🙂

    chored
    Free Member

    Ultimately, the difference is down to what is considered “normal” in the marketplace. I’ve never come across a restaurant which would cook food you supplied, but there are at least 3 bike shops on this thread offering to do what the OP is asking, so it’s not an entirely obscure request.

    Similarly. I’m sure if there was a demand for it, someone would be happy to open a restaurant where you bring your own food in order to meet that demand. But until now, it’s not even something I’ve ever heard being proposed.

    Also, the analogy falls down pretty quickly.

    E.g. I buy a shock from a shop and I want to fit it myself. Well you wouldn’t walk into a restaurant and expect them to sell you the steak without cooking it.

    I buy a new shock from a shop for them to fit onto my bike. Well you wouldn’t expect a restaurant to cook a steak and have you supply the plates and cutlery.

    Bike shops and restaurants are fundamentally different and equating the two is, like others have said, crazy.

    That being said if a shop doesn’t want to fit parts a customer supplies, they don’t have to. Customers while either go elsewhere or buy from the shop next time. But I’d guess as long as there is demand for fitting parts online someone will fill that demand.

    iamtheresurrection
    Full Member

    It’s becoming an odd thread with these comparisons.

    Whether a bIke shop wants to fit parts bought elsewhere is entirely up to them and their business model: that’s not crap service. Not replying to emails and phone calls, as the OP suggests, however…

    A lot of bike shops/small businesses really struggle with this. I don’t think it’s intentional, they just don’t have a system or process they follow [edit] or the resource to cope with rising online/telephone enquiries

    mucker
    Full Member

    Boring, boring, boring.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    A lot of bike shops/small businesses really struggle with this. I don’t think it’s intentional, they just don’t have a system or process they follow [edit] or the resource to cope with rising online/telephone enquiries

    Er, yes. *looks guiltily at the 74 messages in my inbox*

Viewing 20 posts - 41 through 60 (of 60 total)

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