AndyK wrote:we are...lucky. We have a good selection of decent LBSs...within a short radius I can find anything I want.
None of our LBSs are particularly "L"! Taking a bike there for work would involve some logistics (we're rural without a bus service) around free time, shifts (hospital staff), opening hours, parking, fuel expense etc., we can't just drop in. It would be borderline worthwhile in every case barring a major bike disaster. Hence the value to us of an LBS is marginal at best. We're also cycling for amusement, so we're not continually browsing for cycling-related stuff to try out, we're not particularly stimulated by being in a bike shop (some people like to browse etc). Like most people here, I can change tyres, realign and adjust brakes, and true wheels etc, so I don't need a specialist in an LBS to do that for me. They might provide a wealth of service options, but people actually have to have need of those services in order to make them pay. This then comes back to whether you'd buy a bike from there at list price rather than the identical machine online for £85 less (which, if you can set up a bike out of the box, is a reasonable option) - bearing in mind that they wouldn't refuse to service any bike coming in through the doors, bought online or otherwise. In the case of my wife's new bike, the difference was even greater, and yet we'll probably never have cause to visit the LBS in the life of that bike unless there's a warranty claim.
When an LBS is as peripheral as that, it makes no sense to give them business at more expense to us. The different circumstances of every customer dictate what value that shop has in their lives, and for the shop to thrive it needs to have a broad appeal.
The LBS business model might work for some people, but LBS are facing the same situation as record shops did 2 decades ago. If the lucrative part of their business (bike sales) is threatened, they need to value-add somehow and, given the practicalities of us getting there, that would have to be something pretty special to warrant a visit.
Another aspect of the problem is that cheaper new bikes put a cap on the amount an LBS can charge for a repair - squeezing margins because people might just go for a new bike bought online. People using a cycling forum might be more inclined to support LBS because of what they represent to us, and might have bikes expensive enough to make a repair a rational option; there are a vast majority out there that are buying bikes with no major loyalties to cycling per se, nor to an LBS, and online will win every time for that demographic. The LBS business case is under threat whether we like that or not, and for some of them that means going online too.
AndyK wrote:Their prices can't match the on-line discount establishments - that's the price of good, decent, honourable, honest service and after-sales service. They aren't the cheapest, but there really is more to life than that, and anyway, you don't get a Rolls-Royce for the price of a secondhand Lada.
If new Rolls' were sold online, you'd probably get one for a bit less, though!
We just paid a three-figure premium for the privilege of using an LBS we'll probably have no cause to use downstream, in a transaction that was every bit as practical, ethical, good, decent, honourable, honest, etc as it would have been online (there are even additional protections for online purchases). The problem raised by this thread is really the accountability of a faceless online retailer, someone you can't glare at across a counter when things go wrong for whatever reason. If the face-to-face personalised transaction is what you value, the ability to negotiate in good faith etc, then you might opt to pay a premium for that. I just seriously doubt that it is worth £150 to the majority of people.
I should also add that I didn't try my ideal bike out in an LBS and then buy it online. I tried out "a" bike to get an idea of what frame size I'd need, then sat on the idea for a year before going for a bike that the original LBS didn't sell, from another LBS (Singletrack - 300 miles away) that has an online shop and delivery at a cost competing with Wiggle etc.
