Broken Bike Shop Model?

[Seajay]

Thank you all so much for your insight and knowledge. I'm so happy I posed the question. Very valuable to hear from you all. If you keep posting, I'm sure to keep listening.

[kcmpls]

Pretty much the only thing I buy online is clothes. I'd prefer not to, but there are no plus sized bike clothes in any bike shop that I know of. Now, someone needs to start catering to me and my many plus sized female friends who bike, they could make good money.

But in Minneapolis, there is a bike shop to fit however you bike or whoever you are. I went to one bike co-op yesterday and was helped by two women. Both were awesome and both gave great advice. One worked on the floor and the other in the shop. I really appreciate that particular shop because of the women there and it caters more to how I bike.

[Bethany1]

I only had two bikes growing up that I remember. Both were awful, probably because my mom couldn't afford anything fancy. Or they were given to me by a neighbor that didn't ride. My brothers had bikes and they just passed them down as one got to big for it. Sizing? Helmets? Never even came up. My DH said he and his gang of friends spent all day riding around town swapping out bikes and doing tricks.

With the days of getting anything you want online, people are doing that. It's easy, fast, and you don't have to deal with the hassles of sales people following you all over the store like vultures or completely ignoring you. You have the entire shopping mall of your dreams that never closes online at the touch of a key stroke. It's a buyer's dream and a brick store's nightmare.

People also are very visual when it comes to bike. They aren't looking at components. I didn't even know they were that important depending on your bike needs. If you want a red mountain bike, you go online and find the coolest looking red bike you can find and buy it. I've found lots of cool bikes online, like the (homer drool) 6000 dollar 29er tandem mountain bike. Or the 12,000 carbon fiber racing one. Won't be buying either of them any time soon but they are out there if I did.

I buy from my LBS because if something goes wrong, he can fix it or send it back. He will order anything I want if he doesn't have it in stock at a reasonable price. He'll go online to the manufacturer's website and find me several options to choose from. With my LBS, the online bike shopping mall is right at his fingertips and I don't have to guess if something will work.

My LBS had found a way to work with the internet so he makes money and I get the help/guarantees that come with a brick store. It's a perfect match. More brick stores need to see the internet as a huge advantage to their sales to help the consumer instead of fighting it. If you can order it for me, we both win and the states don't have to whine about losing sales tax.

I've found that bike parts are far easier to get from my store as most of the time he isn't stuck on having to order in bulk or having to wait for a large specific amount before purchasing. I get my product in 2-3 days, he puts it on, and I have a warranty that's easy to use if something goes wrong.

Now my local quilt stores...that's a disaster. If I have to wait for her to purchase 500+ dollars in goods before I get my order, I'll buy it online especially if I need to get a project done ASAP. That gets frustrating when you want to buy locally but can't. Then the stores are upset that you went somewhere else and even worse (gasp) went out of state or online. It's not always about sales taxes, it's also about availability.

Should you buy a bike online by yourself? Only if you feel like taking the risks of it not fitting right, knowing how to put it together, and if it's not what you wanted, the pains of shipping it back and working with the store to fix it via the phone or email.

There are some things better bought in a brick store than online. Bikes are one of them.