new low in the LBS today

…and this is where free returns via Collect+ runs in and sucker punches the LBS in the back of the head.

You can order for free. Can get it cheaper. Try it on in the comfort of your own home, and then send back what you don’t want for free via the local shop.

Not sure how LBS can combat that.

Of course once CRC is the only show in town, watch prices inevitably escalate…

Of course once CRC is the only show in town, watch prices inevitably escalate…

They never will be. They had that possibility then **** it up with wrong stock figures and erratic delivery.

hora – Member
They never will be. They had that possibility then **** it up with wrong stock figures and erratic delivery.

Yes, this sort of buyer has a long memory and buys on loyalty only 🙄

B&Q have killed nearly all DIY shops in my city, it’ll never be quite the same for bikes, but please tell me you have heard of amazon’s long term goals?

Always good to hear some local (to me) riders and their experiences of the abomination that is Julie’s Cycles.

Pedal Power (I would say) are better than mediocre. They are a nice bunch and have got me out of a couple of situations involving planned days out that nearly didn’t happen due to my (and other bike retailers) incompetence. I have to balance that up, though, with their tendency to under-estimate turnaround times and their ‘wheel man’.

I think they are a bit too eager to please with maintenance jobs and don’t always give a realistic timescale.

Their ‘wheel man’ was poor – he can certainly make a wheel straight again, but then so can I – what he couldn’t do was make a wheel straight and evenly tensioned so it went out of true in no time afterwards (and no big hits).

On balance I like them, but I find doing stuff myself satisfying and I like learning about how bits of my bike work in the process.

Julie’s Cycles, on the other hand, are a collective nasty piece of work. I will NEVER use them again.

Loved Dave Hinde. Its very hard to find someone who will be blatantly rude to you…

I remember I rang up his store and popped him on speaker phone before a ride and asked where my forks were. It was and mildly annoying to boot as his price was by far the cheapest so I had to wait..

Are there no irony klaxons going off?

Having lived in a number of cities, I can name a few bike shops who I feel no guilt ignoring for CRC speedyness having been sneered at and argued with (and nearly gad a fight in one, started by staff over a thread posted on here about them being condescending to my OH, you know who you are) Exeter however is saturated with bike shops, and they are all great. Only thing they lose out on is stock volume. There are only so many saddles one shop can keep in at any one time!

An LBS near me charges 1.5 X the normal hourly rate for labour when they fit something purchased elsewhere………..Is that common practice?

No, but maybe something for you to think about?

An LBS near me charges 1.5 X the normal hourly rate for labour when they fit something purchased elsewhere………..Is that common practice?

I’ve heard of it, but never seen it in practice.

An LBS near me charges 1.5 X the normal hourly rate for labour when they fit something purchased elsewhere………..Is that common practice

Hopefully it is true and they go under because folks have the common sense to go elsewhere….some shops buy from CRC also

Does anyone get this – my local shops stock clothes. Ok, sometimes not the brands I really want but Altura Endura generally good for me BUT they never have anything ok my size. They will always have a small and a XL but never medium or large. And they want to to pay for it upfront to order it in – and I’m never sure if I can get a refund if they don’t fit right. That drives me to go to Evans or similar. Why do they order in the extreme sizes? Pretty obvious that most buy the average sizes cos they are never in stock!!

Popular sizes in ‘being popular’ shocker…

Plus most lbs will only get one delivery a week.

Hopefully it is true and they go under because folks have the common sense to go elsewhere….some shops buy from CRC also

Actually, I don’t see the problem with this. If the LBS fits something you’ve bought elsewhere, then it’ll be the LBS that gets pestered if theres a problem; charging extra for the hassle factor doesn’t strike me as bad business.

In any case, the LBSs I’ve dealt with tend not to charge for fitting stuff I’ve bought from them; when this is taken into account, CRC isn’t necessarily cheaper (assuming CRC can actually get what I want; I gather a lot of distributors won’t sell to them…)

I shall be ordering around £400 worth of parts for my bike I’m collecting tomorrow, pretty much all of which will be from CRC. Typically I’d fit whatever I could, then get things like pressing bearings, truing wheels or facing done by the LBS (fred williams Wolverhampton-brilliant guys, good availability and good prices) and purchase bikes from Leisure Lakes, local and do 0% finance on a comprehensive range of bikes.

Leisure Lakes I feel have played a massive trump card with their demo day’s, the discount through VIP membership coupled with the 5% extra for demo’s should retain custom. Where else could you get a no obligation test ride on such a good variety of bikes, get 10% in store credit back and 0% finance ? Top marks for them for doing it, a fine showcase of how the LBS (well sort of) can hit the internet-only firms where it hurts.

I went in Julie’s Cycles once. It was a long time ago

I went in Julie’s Cycles once. It was a long time ago

It reminds me of the hifi shop sketch on Not The Nine O’Clock News.

“Ere, how many watts do you need, mate?”

That probably won’t work, but just type “not the nine o’clock news gramophone” into YouTube.

You can then experience the Julie’s Cycles customer service model for yourself.

If I go into my lbs, I rarely leave without buying something, even it’s is a bottle of lube or some sealant. They offer good advice, no bullsh**t and have time to deal with browsers, I appreciate this and reward them with my custom. 5 min advice etc =£5 sale, seems fair to me. I still buy some stuff online but only if the stuff that is ridiculously cheap like pedals. They have a club scheme (with strava top trumps!) £5 per year gets you 12% off parts and clothing! that evens things up with crc/wiggle on nearly everything, particularly brands that don’t allow significant discounting (endura etc).

As for returns making buying soft goods just as easy that is boll**x in my experience. I bought some shoes from wiggle in the sale, they didn’t fit, the box they came in got wet in the post so I had to get a new box and repackage, tried to order the next size up, out of stock, waited for refund. Tried again with some other shoes from crc, same thing. Went to lbc tried some on, they fitted so I bought them, took 5 min and cost me about £10 more than online. Easily worth it for the amount of time wasting I had spent faffing with returns.

The moral is if your lbs is crap just use it for trying stuff on, if it’s good spend some money with them, it’s worth the small amount extra.

I agree with the OP, that is blatant pi55 taking.

My LBS story….

…..had a bad case of stuck pedal with allen key only fitting, tried a few times, realised I didn’t have the tools to do it and didn’t want to damage anything by excess bodgery. Pootled up to LBS with mind to buy long arm allen key. Mechanic said give it here, I’ll get it off for you – 1/2 hr later and 1 broken workshop tool we realised it was going nowhere.
Mechanic said he’d try dismantling pedal, axle in vice, give it some beans – still nothing.
So, warning me worst case is new crank, said he’d try some extreme angle grindery, pop back next day and see if it’s done.
Before leaving shop, we checked chainset price from Madison, eeeek nearly £200 RRP, then over to a leading online retailer, almost 1/2 that.

Was given option to order myself and be charged a small fitting fee or go via Madison (with loyal customer discount price) with free fitting.

Next day, phone call saying pedal’s out, crank fine come collect your bike and if you bring the new pedals we’ll fit them – no charge!

And while bike was there brakes and gears had been fettled
Was told chain was almost at limit of wear, so new one bought and fitted there and then, total bill – nothing, except for price of chain.

Lunch was indeed bought for the mechanic.

So big up to Switchback Cycles, one small shop working hard for their customers

With this type of business sense, I doubt they will be there much longer….

An LBS near me charges 1.5 X the normal hourly rate for labour when they fit something purchased elsewhere………..Is that common practice?

It could be seen as the only charging 2/3 of the normal labour rate for stuff bought from them .

The moral is if your lbs is crap just use it for trying stuff on,

Rather like buying a crate of beer at Tescos and sitting in your local pub expecting to drink it because it’s cheaper than the beer they sell there .

Just seen this on twitter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showrooming

Online stores often offer lower prices than their brick and mortar counterparts, because they do not have the same overhead cost.

Really? Or someone has invested a large amount of money? You know ALOT of the online sellers HAVE shops too.

Even if it was a large building in the middle of an industrial estate it still attracts the same taxes, rates etc. The only dip is rent (debatable as you’d need a bigger premises to hold and process all the stock) and…. staff- can they commute to you/are you near any transport links.

Many shops diversified into online. Many still have their shops.

Tossers.

The tweet (by a BBC news reader) stated that the shop now closes on Saturday as it’s the worst day for show rooming

The shop should charge for admission.

…maybe play some tunes.

…have a dress code.

…sell beer.

OP, you where too nice. Far too nice. Ask the guy upfront if he’s going to buy the parts fro you, if he sys no say sorry we cannot hep you. Expertise costs money and needs to be paid for.

As the t-shirt says “The internet won’t fix your bike”

We need shops for their skills. We need employment opportunities for our population not just delivery van drivers.

Really?

Yes really
Why would you ask?

We need employment opportunities for our population not just delivery van drivers.

They’ll be phased out when the drones take over.

They’ll be phased out when the drones take over.

I’m sure I met a few in the last Evans I visited…

tomhoward – Member
Popular sizes in ‘being popular’ shocker…
Plus most lbs will only get one delivery a week.

But I find this in loads of shops. Even when I go in repeated times and mention they don’t have the popular sizes nothing is done.
It’s as if they order one of each size at the start of the season and never bother to restock.

One of the big issues for shops nowadays must be the insane amount of standards the manufacturers now bring out. Through the last 20 years there has been some varying standards as there has always been but in the last 3 years it’s been mental. If you want to stock tyres it used to be 26″ and 700c and you could stock a couple of favourites of each and some cheapy ones. Now there is 3 MTB sizes alone, with a million combinations of tread and size of each one. Then you have BB’s, 1/2/3 by 7/8/9/10/11 drivetrains, forks to fit all the wheel sizes, axles to fit all the forks and frames, bar standards aplenty.

It must be a nightmare!

Some distributors have a minimum order – smaller shops might not be able to meet this at the drop of a hat

hora – Member

In many shops there is a definite ‘clubbiness’ so that if you are a new customer or infrequent, you are basically ignored by staff talking to regulars, or even abandoned mid-transaction when one of ‘the gang’ walk in.

Really? That is bonkers.

Geoffrey Butler Cycles in Croydon- thats one shop I’d go back to. Everytime I went in I thought they were quoting/charging me too cheap. Said as such and was told ‘you mountain bikers pay too much’.

My experience of Geoffrey Butler’s, or their mountain bike shop Bike Plus which I tend to use much more frequently, is the complete opposite of the first comment – the bastards ignore me because they are so used to seeing me and instead fuss around new customers.

In fact recently a new customer could see that I was waiting to be served and clearly felt awkward as the manager was spending a lot of time with him, so he said “why don’t you serve this gentleman?”. The manager looked across at me and said smiling “he’s not important, he can wait”.

And with regards to ‘undercharging’ I often get unexpected further discounts at the till. Often it’s when I’m a little short of cash as happened yesterday when I popped in while cycling past to get a couple of items which should have come to about 18 quid, I only had 15 quid on me so said I would only take one item. After tapping at the till for a while the total for the two items came to just under 15 quid.

I use Butlers/Bike Plus a lot.

I bought my first ‘new’ bike in a lbs. When I picked it up it had a bit missing from the stem, they promised to get it in for me, but once they had my money they never bothered.

Second new bike was from a different lbs. During a service the clowns in the workshop broke the frame and the shop/supplier wouldn’t honour the replacement frame warranty (replaced the titanium frame with a steel one).

Third new bike was from yet another lbs. I bought a bottle cage at the same time and they insisted on fitting it ‘at no extra charge’. They fitted it upside down, yes really, upside frigging down. One of the shifters didn’t work so I took it back to be replaced straight away. They managed to do it, but broke my bell (and didn’t tell me) and also did my free 6 weeks service at the same time (I’d only had it 1 day).

After this I gave up on the whole lbs idea, buy most stuff online and do my own mechanics. I sometimes pop in to buy clothing, but that’s about it.

and do my own mechanics

Funnily after a few too many mistakes at CycleSurgery in London I decided to teach myself how to build bikes. I used to buy ALOT from their store because it was all new to me/just started riding again, they’d say something was worn out/needed replacing, sold me stuff at full whack etc.

Great to hit their shop sales targets and “sell to mugs” -lets face it when it clicks whats happening you develop a very poor view of bike shops.

That is poor form to be so blatant.

I was never a fan of my LBS, too expensive, range too small and not particularly good. On the recommendation of a friend, I went to a not so LBS which is 1 junction down the motorway and I was pleasantly surprised.

Good range, fair prices and couldn’t be more helpful. They even have a few end of lines bikes that are less than paulscycles and the other go-to cheap online shops. Will def be going there from now on.

well here is a pleasant update.
the first chap bought some stuff online but called us back to check some parts he was ordering on CRC, but he wants us to build the bike and has spent a fair amount with us, and he thinks were great and is really happy, so that’s good.
then the second guy emailed back and has bought the bike from us with a little bit of negotiating.

so all good.
🙂

As for returns making buying soft goods just as easy that is boll**x in my experience

in yours but not mine, my better half’s, or any of my riding mates. One bought a job lot of knee pads and handlebars from CRC, sat in living room wearing pads and holding bars til found what he wanted, sent the rest back. Ive routinely bought multiple sizes/variations from CRC, stuck it on CC, tried on and kept the best, returned the rest and refund is quick and back on CC before I get the bill. I’ve returned the majority of my CRC orders recently that were placed on a bit of a whim, they incur a cost but then Ive also kept whimsical purchases I wouldnt have made (eg. second pair of road shoes I am struggling to justify needing) if they’d not had that policy.

well here is a pleasant update.

full circle, closes thread? (and a nice result for your efforts).

so all good.

Too late. You have opened Hora’s Pandora’s Box, and that shit ain’t going back in.

Surely it’s “PanHora”?

Oddly enough, GB’s in Croydon were splendid to me, even though I had told them I couldn’t buy a bike from them as it was a c2w purchase, but I was looking at a Binachi of which they were stockists.

Firstly they couldn’t have been more helpful, sending me off with a handful of catalogues and advice. Secondly, I felt they should have something for their time so I wandered out with a handful of innertubes.

So they did get some sort of a sale, they’ve had repeat business from me since and I’d recommend them again.

Browsing is a 2 way street.

And on my BMX I had a chainring I couldn’t get off a crank. I’d tried 2 days with the wrong tools – popped it into LBS C&N Redhill – took 10 seconds. They refused to charge me, and so I now have more inner tubes than you could possibly imagine! I’ve also gone on to buy lights, locks and things from them that might have been cheaper on line, but I understand where “long term” value is in having a LBS.