There is something deeply wrong with the industry if a shop as good as Soho can’t make a living.

From what I’ve heard/read, they were everything your discerning (other, less complimentary, terms are applicable here) MTBer wanted, hell, they were the STW readers LBS of the year in ‘16, MBRs best bike shop in London, and always getting praise on FB and other social media. I understand their coffee was ace too.

Adapt or die, the internet know all’s will say. To what now? What were they doing wrong?

Best of luck for the future to all involved, hopefully this will be a turning/wake up point for the industry.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/another-one-bites-the-dust-soho-bikes-no-need-for-mtb-in-london

The adapt or die threads have been around a lot. Market is contracting, it also says in the release that it is for personal reasons so may not be 100% business.

they were the STW readers LBS of the year

What were they doing wrong?

These two sentences might not be entirely unrelated 😀

Sucks, work 10 minutes away and have been in loads over the years. I’m sure someone will be along to say “selling mtbs in central London wtf m8”, but a lot of people that work in Central London don’t live in Central London (about a 15min ride from Epping forest here). There’s also plenty of money there, to the degree that dropping £5-6k on a very occasional hobby wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.

Ah, hadn’t seen the personal reasons bit, but you’d think a strong business could have found someone to take it on? Anyway, feel free to report/close the thread as duplicate…

There is something deeply wrong with the industry if a shop as good as Soho can’t make a living.

Are you sure it’s ‘the industry’ at fault?
Do you have any idea how much a lease for a site like that in Soho costs a year?

Need to sell a hell of a lot of £5k+ bikes to make a profit in Soho.

It’s more of a boutique roadie bike kind of location anyway, and even then it’s a hell of a lot of boutique carbon road bikes to sell just to pay the bills.

Even hipster coffee isn’t going to help.

MBRs best bike shop in London

Says it all really…

If you choose an overhead laden business model/location in an market where most customers will be making purchasing decisions driven, at least in part, by prices (which they can, and will, compare on their phones while supping your lovely coffee), then no amount of positive press and made up awards are going to save you from going bust…

Moral of the story? Ditch the bikes, open a coffee shop…

hopefully this will be a turning/wake up point for the industry.

I think they already got the message, direct online sales cut out those dealers, make your margin and attract customers with lower pricing…

I think they already got the message, direct online sales cut out those dealers, make your margin and attract customers with lower pricing…

And in other markets shop driven sales are doing very well by delivering good products and high service levels, just managing overheads and costs. Price and value are still different concepts, if I’m spending big I want backup and support close at hand and if I’m busy I want good solid service options with people I trust without a big turnover of staff.

To apply Godwin 2 early doors theres a lot of uncertainty around at the moment and prices have risen considerably.
So fewer people are spending on cars, bikes, phones anything thats a sizable outlay.

I imagine its also difficult to make one expensive to run shop pay without ten + others providing high turnover on lower rents.

Moral of the story? Ditch the bikes, open a coffee shop…

I always assumed it was a coffee shop that sold bikes…*

*I’ve not actually been there.

If there were lots of convenient trails around the area with uplifts, they might have made enough sales to more money than sense bankers, but the lure of a high end MTB just isn’t obvious enough in the centre of the smoke.