Hey, don't go there please. I'm not trying to ***** about it or say that I'll only shop on the internet. I was just posting my opinion on it.

It's not a HUGE deal for me, but I'll bet it's going to be something that becomes more and more important in the future. One only need look at current trends, when the next big band has their career launched on MySpace of all things :lol: ... and everyone has a web page. And by all means I'm not saying things should go online only, so don't misconstrue my posts. I would just like to see a bit more as far as what I an find out about a shop online.

Ahhh... I see what you're doing.

 

Ok, now let me start this one off by saying this post might be slightly controversial. Feel free to voice your opinions on the subject. Here's my problem. Why do so few bike shops list their inventory online? I mean, it's almost a given these days for a business to have a website in order to be successful. Most bike shops barely have a front page, or they have some halfass ugly site thrown up just to say they have one. Most aren't functional at all save to get a few minor details.

In the internet age, why not list your inventory online? I for one don't enjoy going to every single bike shop in the area just to see if they MIGHT have what I'm looking for. I'd much rather just browse online and then go pick it up from the store when I find one that has what I'm looking for at a good price. It's so convenient to shop online. Stuff like helmets and clothing though, sometimes you have to try it on. It's so simple to list your product online. I'm not even talking about selling your stuff online, just list what you have and how much it costs! It's so easy to create a good website that lists your merch, you can even tie it into the pos system to update your prices online and in-store. It's not even that expensive to get a basic website done by a small company.

I know alot of the older generation still use phone books and will go to every store personally to find what they want...but most people these days have grown up using a computer and like the convenience and time savings of the internet. Time is money, so they say. Just seems that local bike shops would want to get in on that.

I tried to work with some shops in NJ to have an online presence when I had my own consulting company. Here is what I found:

1. Most of the boutique and smaller bike manufacturers will not allow the online pricing of their merchandise. You can make a sale by showing the item, but the individual will need to call the shop. This helps to maintain franchising agreements in local areas. The big boys like Trek and Specialized do not do that. That's why any store (even an REI) can stock it. You don't find Santa Cruz, Ventana, Titus, etc. in every shop.

2. Maintaining the inventory is easy with barcoding and the right system. It's just not worth the investment for the small shops.

3. There is one company that supplies 80% of the bike shop websites. It's basically a cookie cutter design w/hosting. SmartEtailing, Inc. (www.smartetailing.com) provides the bulk of bike shop Websites you see online. Even Wheat Ridge Cyclery is one of their customers.

 

Wow, I didn't realize Golden Bear is still in business!

Yeah, the money and time it takes to operate and maintain a full point of sale and inventory system is not possilbe for most shops. Nor does it give them much of a competitive advantage. If the shop is bigger and markets country-wide (CO Cyclist, Mojo Wheels, Excel Sports, etc.), then yes, a system of such should be worth it. But as it has already been said its much more cost effective for ma/pop shops to "manage by walking around." Pen and paper and maybe a spreadsheet is all you need.

 

If I need something right now, I call around first. That's rare so usually, I just call Larry at mtnhighcyclery and he ships me whatever I need. His prices are better and he knows way more about components and other parts than any shop I have been to here so I just stick with him.

I do think that listing and maintaining inventory can be a huge undertaking due to the number if small parts that are constantly moving. I wish it worked that way but the time and cost involved (not to mention expertise) will be too much. Hell, 90% of the shop guys in Denver don't even know they have valves with removable cores or what a gonzo valve is for a shock. Why burden them with all this!

EDIT- Not one shop here knew what Hope front hub adapters/endcaps or were when I tried calling and I probably called 15 shops. Let them focus on what they do. Oh, I also called asking for rotor shims (not caliper shims) and not one knew what those were. So I call Larry again- shims and adapters on their way.

 

I thought pictures were requested...here's my old shop from Milwaukee. He's got a website, but I hardly ever used it (just now to get the picture!), I would just go there and talk to them. Yeah its not as convenient as the internet, but I liked hanging out in the bike shop. The owner was always there, and he's an awesome guy. If I was after convenience I wouldn't own an XC bike or a road bike, I'd shuttle everything with my DH bike. Even those road rides!

I think hanging out in a bike shop and talking to people is part of the hobby.

 

Performance probably would but then you'd be shopping at Performance.

Support your local brick and mortar!

Let me take a moment here and say that while Performance might be a 2000 lbs.gorilla of an operation compared to the local LBS/IBD, Performance does also have a stake in the community in the neighbors (who are also fellow cyclists) it employs, the tax revenue it generates, and its caliber of commercial real estate presence.

Some of you say that service/selection at your local Performance sucks, but my personal experience is quite the opposite: At my Performance, I receive service and recognition that rivals any of the LBS' in town that I also frequent to the extent that Performance is my first thought whenever I need or want something.

Performance offers a published and publicized 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. While I won't go into another debate on the ethics of returning bikes used after a season, the fact is, you'll get your money back (or other adjustment) if you want it back, when you want it back.

Their Buyers' Club (or whatever their loyalty incentive plan is called) is effectively an automatic 10% discount on any purchase, any day. Yes, you pay $25 a year for it, but if you're a serious cyclist, that $25 pays for itself very quickly.

Cost-wise, Performance price-matches any bona-fide competitor price. Yes, their in-store shelf tags and website prices might sometimes give you sticker shock because you know you saw it at Pricepoint, Jenson, or elsewhere for less than half. But Performance will match that price - and with your buyers' club 10%, and not to mention either having the item in-stock to allow you walk out of the store with it, or not charging you for shipping if you elect to receive it in-store - to me, you come out ahead of even ordering from the aforementioned competitors. Of course, Performance's standard inventory may not be as extensive as some internet dealers, but I've found Performance to meet my needs 99% of the time - and although they can special-order something they don't normally stock for you, it does come at a premium, but the associates at my store have always been forthright about, "you'd be better off getting it somewhere else where you could get it cheaper."

When I need service, which is not that often, but given that I'm a reasonable wrench, it's usually for something that requires specialized tools and/or experience, and there will be real "work" involved. But still, I get in at the head of the queue: "When do you need it back? OK, I'm booked out til the end of the month, but I'll get you taken care of, bro."

Gathering from some of the comments about Performance on this board, I really think the service experience received by certain posters is a reflection of the posters' own personality or attitude they cast when they visit, call, or otherwise deal with Performance. You can't tell me that you've never run into a clueless or unmotivated or greedy employee at an LBS - quite in fact, IME, LBS' are legendary for that. The workers at Performance are people, too, and they can pick up on a shoulder chip or outright nastiness that a customer walks in with. You get what you give.

Pointing this discussion to the thread's subject, whereas Performance doesn't have a store-by-store website listing of its inventory, you can get a good idea of what they do have between going to their website, and then calling or stopping by your local store to see what they've got on hand. What they don't have on-hand, they can order for you, as per all of the above.

While I'm definitely no fan or apologist of all big-box operations - companies like Wal-Mart and Target are everything that is and has gone wrong with this country - a niche player like Performance, and at least the way my local store runs theirs, exemplifies the very same capitalism that the endearing LBS on quaint Main Street next to the quilt shop relies on to thrive.

 

I
2. Maintaining the inventory is easy with barcoding and the right system. It's just not worth the investment for the small shops.

exactly - that is why the bigger shops with the bigger inventory have the advantage.

 

I tried to work with some shops in NJ to have an online presence when I had my own consulting company. Here is what I found:

1. Most of the boutique and smaller bike manufacturers will not allow the online pricing of their merchandise. You can make a sale by showing the item, but the individual will need to call the shop. This helps to maintain franchising agreements in local areas. The big boys like Trek and Specialized do not do that. That's why any store (even an REI) can stock it. You don't find Santa Cruz, Ventana, Titus, etc. in every shop.

2. Maintaining the inventory is easy with barcoding and the right system. It's just not worth the investment for the small shops.

3. There is one company that supplies 80% of the bike shop websites. It's basically a cookie cutter design w/hosting. SmartEtailing, Inc. (www.smartetailing.com) provides the bulk of bike shop Websites you see online. Even Wheat Ridge Cyclery is one of their customers.

DITTO!! AND of course I have to weigh in on this subject being I have worked at one of these shops mentioned and now manage a much smaller shop... I think that Athalliah has pretty much nailed it. You HAVE to have a dedicated IT dude if you are large like WRC and even then, there is no way he has the time to put an updated inventory on line -- do you know how radically that inventory changes during season from day to day even from hour to hour? No matter how good your POS system is: a retail POS system that can be tied into your internet presense is pretty darn expensive and small shops struggle with beiing able to afford a decent system -- many use Ascend which is tied into Smartetailing. We try to list our bike inventory on line (which isn't too large) and I've alreday discovered that as soon as I sell one of the listed bikes,invariably 5 minutes later someone calls for that bike and then gets upset because its listed on our website as available and now we don't have it. There is no way that we are going to put a full listing of all parts and assessories on line and keep it updated!! A small shop cannot afford an dedicated IT dude -- I don't have the time to do it not does the owner have the money to pay me to do it and I actually DO have a life and would prefer to spend that life AWAY from the shop and ideally on my mtn bike or road bike -- with friends!

Call us -- we'll be happy to let you know what we have or order it in if we don't! Come on in -- sit down and chat with us, get to know us -- we like our customers to visit with us. We get to know you, you get to know us -- its all good!!!

www.thebikestation.com

 

Bends But Doesn't Break, I got two paragraphs deep before my quota for the word "Performance" was maxed out.

To the OP. Coming from a someone who plays with websites and databases for a living, your analysis of software maintenance effort and cost is underestimated. I've spent days debugging and troubleshooting my own code and even longer doing the same to other folks code just because of something silly like a missing semicolon or a select statement that is retrieving too much or too little data. Heck, we've even had a strange bug with Oracle 10g where tables become invisible to the web app, but still exist and can be manipulated manually. Weird stuff that would be a tremendous cost and time burden to a small shop.

Personally, I'm content calling my favorite shops to see if they have my specific parts. If I want to browse their inventory, I'd prefer to do that in person anyway so I'll make the trip. However, if I want to see what they can get, I hop onto BTI's site, knowing that my favorite shops order from them, and go wild writing down BTI's PN's. I suggest you give that a shot.

www.bti-usa.com

 

What a minute, did someone actually stick up for Performance? Is hell freezing over?! :eekster: :skep:

 

Dude you could get a slick website done for under a thousand if you know the right places and go with the small companies. Once you get it up, it's pretty easy to manage it yourself. I don't really call that a serious investment.

That's a load of utter bollocks. You get what you pay for in the world of web design. A couple of grand will get you a halfway purdy picture and almost no functionality. And expecting a bike store manager to manage a website is either naive or fairly typical of a techie who can't see things from a non-tech perspective.

I priced out a slick site a while back for my company. Good design, about 20 pages, top notch copywriting. Simple layout, Java-driven menus. The results are good, but not complicated. The cost was about 20K.

If you want to add accurate inventory management on top of that, you're talking a SQL or Oracle database and an inventory management system, maybe small-scale SAP. A consultant to design and implement the system, then train someone in it's use. I'd venture to say that's at least another 50K... for what? Answering questions that can be handled over the phone.

 

DITTO!! AND of course I have to weigh in on this subject being I have worked at one of these shops mentioned and now manage a much smaller shop... I think that Athalliah has pretty much nailed it. You HAVE to have a dedicated IT dude if you are large like WRC and even then, there is no way he has the time to put an updated inventory on line -- do you know how radically that inventory changes during season from day to day even from hour to hour? No matter how good your POS system is: a retail POS system that can be tied into your internet presense is pretty darn expensive and small shops struggle with beiing able to afford a decent system -- many use Ascend which is tied into Smartetailing. We try to list our bike inventory on line (which isn't too large) and I've alreday discovered that as soon as I sell one of the listed bikes,invariably 5 minutes later someone calls for that bike and then gets upset because its listed on our website as available and now we don't have it. There is no way that we are going to put a full listing of all parts and assessories on line and keep it updated!! A small shop cannot afford an dedicated IT dude -- I don't have the time to do it not does the owner have the money to pay me to do it and I actually DO have a life and would prefer to spend that life AWAY from the shop and ideally on my mtn bike or road bike -- with friends!

Call us -- we'll be happy to let you know what we have or order it in if we don't! Come on in -- sit down and chat with us, get to know us -- we like our customers to visit with us. We get to know you, you get to know us -- its all good!!!

www.thebikestation.com

Very true. I don't disagree. But figure this. You just move to an area, especially this area, where there's a bike shop on practically every corner it seems. Now you hardly know much about the area, let alone which LBS to go to. How are you supposed to know which one has the best prices, the best service, the best selection? Websites are a good source of information at a glance. Otherwise, you're talking about having to call every single bike shop in the area, or visit every single bike shop in the area. I also suppose you could ask folks on forums like these, but every person has a different opinion about their best local bike shop. Even with everyone bashing Performance, we saw one person who was 100% satisfied with them, so results may vary.

Even a little progress would be great, instead of just listing the brands you carry and linking to the manufacturer site. At lest get a bit more specific. I'd be happy for at least a partial inventory listing to get a feel for what a place has. And like I said, some store photos are great too. I'm not talking about a revolution here, just a little progress. That's just my $.02...for what it's worth.

 

To the OP. Coming from a someone who plays with websites and databases for a living, your analysis of software maintenance effort and cost is underestimated. I've spent days debugging and troubleshooting my own code and even longer doing the same to other folks code just because of something silly like a missing semicolon or a select statement that is retrieving too much or too little data. Heck, we've even had a strange bug with Oracle 10g where tables become invisible to the web app, but still exist and can be manipulated manually. Weird stuff that would be a tremendous cost and time burden to a small shop.

Making a good living? I have a DBA position coming online in December. Crossover skills (ORACLE and MS SQL). Start up publicly traded Pharma, promising product due in June, you know the drill.

North of Denver and slightly East of Golden (not Boulder).

 

Making a good living? I have a DBA position coming online in December. Crossover skills (ORACLE and MS SQL). Start up publicly traded Pharma, promising product due in June, you know the drill.

North of Denver and slightly East of Golden (not Boulder).

Schnauzers, I very much appreciate the heads up and fact that you are looking out for one of your own, but am going to pass. My current title is software developer and I fulfill those shoes much better than I would a DBA position. Thank you for keeping me in mind though. :thumbsup:

 

Recently, I lead team to build some eCommerce sites for a clothing company that is not related to cycling. We are only selling last season's leftover goods and closeouts...probabaly about 100 items with variance (multiple sizes and colors). The software being used to run the shopping cart and web content is inexpensive and simple to manage...no or very little programming is necessary. The system controls all the inventory and will not allow a customer to order products that have 0 inventory. The company has an ERP system which we export the inventory numbers out of every morning and import into the web site. The hosting is also inexpensive. This would probably cost a shop about 5K to set up plus some time to get familiar with the systems. We integrated some SEO (search engine optimization) to draw in customers....the consulting fees for this portion were the most expensive part of the project and are ongoing.

With a little time and basic computer knowledge you can get a decent eCommerce operation up and running. However, if you have a warehouse ERP system, retail store POS system and want that to be integrated and seamless that is an entirely different story and will cost tens of thousands of dollars.

The one thing in the OP argument I don't understand is shops going through all the trouble of listing their inventory and then not selling online. It would simply be a waste of time. But if the shop were to set up an inexpensive shopping cart, export their inventory daily, turn their shipping into a cash cow and do some marketing it may just work out. Bent Gate in Golden does this in a similar fashion and it seems to work pretty well for them.

The only true problem is the disparity between the POS system and the shopping cart, but once a customer understands that the smaller shops aren't REI or Performance with seemingly unlimited resources they seem to understand the occasional, "Oh, someone just walked on and bought the last one, sorry" line.

 

Recently, I lead team to build some eCommerce sites for a clothing company that is not related to cycling. We are only selling last season's leftover goods and closeouts...probabaly about 100 items with variance (multiple sizes and colors). The software being used to run the shopping cart and web content is inexpensive and simple to manage...no or very little programming is necessary. The system controls all the inventory and will not allow a customer to order products that have 0 inventory. The company has an ERP system which we export the inventory numbers out of every morning and import into the web site. The hosting is also inexpensive. This would probably cost a shop about 5K to set up plus some time to get familiar with the systems. We integrated some SEO (search engine optimization) to draw in customers....the consulting fees for this portion were the most expensive part of the project and are ongoing.

With a little time and basic computer knowledge you can get a decent eCommerce operation up and running. However, if you have a warehouse ERP system, retail store POS system and want that to be integrated and seamless that is an entirely different story and will cost tens of thousands of dollars.

The one thing in the OP argument I don't understand is shops going through all the trouble of listing their inventory and then not selling online. It would simply be a waste of time. But if the shop were to set up an inexpensive shopping cart, export their inventory daily, turn their shipping into a cash cow and do some marketing it may just work out. Bent Gate in Golden does this in a similar fashion and it seems to work pretty well for them.

The only true problem is the disparity between the POS system and the shopping cart, but once a customer understands that the smaller shops aren't REI or Performance with seemingly unlimited resources they seem to understand the occasional, "Oh, someone just walked on and bought the last one, sorry" line.

Yeah, it's not beyond the realm of possiblity. The only thing I was thinking of in regards to not selling online, but posting inventory is the argument that most shops don't have the resources or inventory to meet online demand. But honestly yeah, selling stuff online can only be good for a company. You're right that if you go that route, you might as well go the whole 9 yards. I know I'd love it. And I only spoke about the full range of possible sites when I mentioned tying into the POS system. You could go from the very basic to the very advanced. I didn't mean for that to be a solution for everyone. But yeah, like I said you could get a very inexpensive e-commerce site set up like you mentioned. And I know there are places that will do it even cheaper.

I know how easy it is to jump on the bandwagon on forums like this sometimes and flame somebody. I appreciate that there's at least 1 other person who thinks it wouldn't be a bad idea. Thanks for the post. But as I said in the beginnning, I knew this post would be controversial. Heh heh.

 

My bet ...

+90% of all bike purchases are "impulse buys" that then are stored in the garage for
eternity

I bet I could buy a full suspension very nice ride by distributing flyers in my neighborhood ...

Except for the fact once a person owns an item their sense of its value increases ...

-r

 

www.bikeparts.com In store pick up in Golden the next day......

And the people there are pretty cool too.

 

Sounds like you could have written the program required in the time it's taken you to gripe about it here. Then you could have sold it to every shop in the area and made a tidy profit! Be proactive...

 

The smaller shops want you in their store. They aren't going to beat the big guys on prices, so they don't want to list them online simply so that you chose the big guy who is cheaper anyway. They want you appearing in their store taking advantage of their service, and while you're there you might decide to buy their overpriced tire wrenches sitting on the counter because you respect them for their service and don't feel like trekking over to the big guy to save $3 and spend $5 on gas.

Listing your prices online only helps you if you are the cheapest guy in town (i.e the big guy). Add that to all the other economies of scale that everyone else points out and you have a fairly simple formula with at least two factors pushing towards the big guy to have an online presence with prices and the little guy not to. The model seems to fit reality. There are variations, of course, not everyone makes good business decisions.

 

WTF "I know alot of the older generation still use phone books and will go to every store personally to find what they want...but most people these days have grown up using a computer and like the convenience and time savings of the internet", what age are you talking about.

Yes there was no PC when I grew up just mini computers (PDP-11) and mainframes, my first test in College I used a slide rule

Punch cards for input!

As an IT type and one who blogs it is a lot of work to maintain anything and the average store is barely breaking even and they work very long hours. Usually they have a friend or geek co-worker build their website so you can't expect much.

 

As an IT type and one who blogs it is a lot of work to maintain anything and the average store is barely breaking even and they work very long hours. Usually they have a friend or geek co-worker build their website so you can't expect much.

You got that right!!! :thumbsup:

 

Ok, now let me start this one off by saying this post might be slightly controversial. Feel free to voice your opinions on the subject. Here's my problem. Why do so few bike shops list their inventory online? I mean, it's almost a given these days for a business to have a website in order to be successful. Most bike shops barely have a front page, or they have some halfass ugly site thrown up just to say they have one. Most aren't functional at all save to get a few minor details.

In the internet age, why not list your inventory online? I for one don't enjoy going to every single bike shop in the area just to see if they MIGHT have what I'm looking for. I'd much rather just browse online and then go pick it up from the store when I find one that has what I'm looking for at a good price. It's so convenient to shop online. Stuff like helmets and clothing though, sometimes you have to try it on. It's so simple to list your product online. I'm not even talking about selling your stuff online, just list what you have and how much it costs! It's so easy to create a good website that lists your merch, you can even tie it into the pos system to update your prices online and in-store. It's not even that expensive to get a basic website done by a small company.

I know alot of the older generation still use phone books and will go to every store personally to find what they want...but most people these days have grown up using a computer and like the convenience and time savings of the internet. Time is money, so they say. Just seems that local bike shops would want to get in on that.

You have no ****ing clue how much inventory is rolling in and out of a shop. Shops aren't going to hire an extra full time employee to save you a 10 minute drive. I do not mean big dollar items, try keeping track of things like tubes and cable ends which get tossed around all over. Maybe it was just working at a higher end shops but most of the money comes from the regulars. The ones that show up every year and buy 50 grand worth of bikes for the family every year, ride so much that they are in the shop a couple times a week paying $60+ an hour plus parts in repairs etc.

 

On the other side, I totally get what X1 is saying. I don't think that it is about putting someone out of business or making it more difficult, it is about putting a bit of customer service out there for the consumers.

Here in the 'Springs, I have 5 shops within riding distance from the house, and 2 of them, you barely get a grunt or someone looking up from reading VeloNews to acknowledge you're there. Unless you walk in wearing a full kit roadie outfit, then they're licking your @$$. Another shop is more family/BMX oriented and they're nice, but they don't have very much stuff over LX level of components. The other two are very friendly and where I usually frequent, but they don't always have what I need.

I'll give you a great example. A few days before I went to Fruita and Moab, I found my Race Face X-type BB was shot on the drive side. So, I zip over to ProCycling to get a BB. I figure a well stocked shop like PC would have an external BB (since I could use a Race Face or Shimano BB). Not ONE in stock...not one. Huh? Something so simple? So I go home and call a couple of other shops, finally finding one at Ted's.

Yeah, I know I should have called PC first, but I figured they'd have something like that in stock. It's not like it was a pair of Sram X.O trigger shifters (which they had like 5 in stock...)

Finding where it is at would be nice. Maybe not necessarily realistic, but nice.

 

TFR, I have found the strangest things at Ted's. Whenever I need some obscure bolt, 10mm axle nut with a built-in washer, hollowed thru axles, chainring spacers, or even pad contact adjustment knobs for HS-33's, I just roll over to Ted's. They have a great stock of what I find most shops to lack a good supply of: small parts. They even have Code pads in stock. Only Criterium and Ted's stock Code pads.

With that said, I'd rather see shops invest in drawers and drawers of small parts, than an online inventory system. Let's be honest, when I bring in some mangled little piece of metal and say "I need one of these" and they have not just one, but six of them, I can practically hear angles singing and watch the clouds parting to shine a beam of cleansing light on that little shop. I practically want to hug the service rep. Makes my day every time.