Another reason NOT to buy a Wal Mart bike..

[SandyLS]

My teenage granddaughter's uncle purchased a Wal-Mart bike for her last summer. The bike's brakes were not installed properly and she crashed into the side of a car in a driveway going down a steep hill as she was on her way to work. Luckily she only ended up with some road rash and bruises. If you must buy a bike from a big box store make sure to look it over or have it looked over by someone who knows about bikes before you ride . Probably good advice where ever you buy a bike!
Hubby and I each own bike shop bikes and enjoy them (Bianchi Veloce for me, EZ Racer Goldrush recumbent for hubby.) But, last year we spent several weeks in Hawaii and bought Wal-Mart mountian bikes to use while we were there. These worked for our needs there mostly because hubby is a pretty good wrench and was able to make adjustments which were needed often. We were very glad to get back on our 'good' bikes when we got home from vacation.

[Mr. Bloom]

RM: I'm hoping I can meet ya'll next time I'm in Phoenix.

I encourage you to stay focused on YOUR value proposition and what YOU offer.

My experience is that when someone gets too empassioned in their criticism of the competition, I get suspicious of them and delay my decision. The trick is 'being right' but not having them think bad about you.

To some, price will be THE issue...they often won't tell you that they can't afford anything better and you don't want them feeling bad about themselves.

[missymaya]

Now, I believe (don't have back up informartion) that there was a lawsuit towards one of the big box stores because a little girl was riding her bike and the quill stem was not properly tightened, it dropped and she went head over the handle bars, cutting her face pretty bad and had to get stiches. Now, this is what I was told by one of the guys I work with at the LBS, I could be wrong and please correct me if so.
Now that it's after January, we've gotten a ton of bikes that need to be fixed and unfortunately, most of them coming from big box stores. It saddens me because these people are buying the bikes and then putting more $$ into them just so they can run.

[Mr. Bloom]

Another reason to focus on your value:

http://www.bike-eu.com/news/2485/wal...ke-market.html

But, here's one of the lawsuits missy was referring to:

http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archive...back_pedaling/

[Running Mommy]

Yeah mr. silver. I do recognize that some people just can't afford anything else. Or like one of the other posters said, they don't think bikes should cost more than a hundred bucks, because "back in the day....."
Yeah, well BACK IN THE DAY car's were much less expensive too. As was everything else. Those people are just going to be the way they are going to be.
But I really don't want anyone to feel bad about what they ride. I just want to see people riding and having fun- no matter what the ride is!
My concern is the safety issue. Flybye is lucky. She must have a decent mechanic up there. But being in a farm community perhaps the bike assembler has been working on farm equipment all their life, so are mechanical by nature. Of course that's just a guess...
But I can say that the wal mart in Rohnert Park CA were I used to work used kids, and we had A LOT of incidents of people getting hurt.
And here in Goodyear I see the same sort of thing.
BTW- I did take a pic on my phone of the backwards fork. Now I just have to figure out how to get it OUT of my phone! lol
But yeah, good exchange here, good ideas!

[teigyr]

I wonder if there's a way to have someone test-ride a really really heavy low-end bike (that you wouldn't really carry anyway) and then a better one?

I know that for some people, there's a budget. I guess everyone should learn that buying something cheap several times because it breaks is not more cost efficient than buying something a bit more expensive that lasts. Heck, I learned that with shoes ages ago

I honestly think that some people still see bikes as toys. And you're right, back in the day other things were cheaper too but I bet if you compared the price to income, the bike wasn't THAT cheap. I'm lucky. When my parents bought me a bike, they went to the local bike shop and got me a decent one.

[Tuckervill]

So pick up a Big Box bike at a garage sale and keep it in the shop as a "trade-in". Give your customers an opportunity to try both.

If I had a bike shop I'd have used bikes, too. Maybe you wanted not to have any used bikes around, but it could be useful. I always love a bike shop that has old beaters and beauties just waiting to be admired.

Karen

[Tuckervill]

Big box stores sometimes hire contractors to put together all kinds of things in their stores. The guy who sells the contract to the big box store hires out the actual assembly to whomever they can get for ten bucks an hour. The assembler is a subcontractor, meaning he is not an employee, so no taxes are paid on his behalf, and he's probably not "bonded and insured", either. He's probably young, someone who needed a job and would be doing something else if he didn't "know a guy".

I know all this because my son did it for a time. He was the kid who "knew a guy", but he didn't assemble bikes. He assembled furniture and other stuff for Target.

Karen