London bike shops closing

Pave Velo in Stratford shut in February. So there are no bike shops near the Lee Valley Velo Park. Legacy and all.

(PV' St Austell shop also shut fwiw)

Bike Shack is the nearest, but it's a bit of a walk if you've got a flat

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I work in the Industry and have done for 5 years, currently working in a London Bike shop as an assistant manager - Here's my take.

We definitely hit peak of the bell curve of trade a few years ago and now are coming down the other side - We had an explosion of growth with Wiggins, Olympic fever etc and things were good, lots of new shops opening etc.

The trajectory was starting to show signs of already heading downward before brexit, then brexit hit consumer confidence and put the cost of bikes up and the specs lower as 99% of bikes in the country are imported from the Far East and lower value of the pound hit us hard.

Consumer confidence and appetite for big purchases is at an all time low, I remember when people would happily walk in and chuck down 5/6 Grand cash for a big bike purchase, that as dried up now, and a lot more on cyclescheme and finance which eats into margins (bike shops will lose 10% margin on these purchases) Bear in mind the usual margin on a bike sale is 40%.

Plus the farcical review of business rates hasn't helped, general increases in London rents, and the atrocious winter we've just had.

Obviously increasing competition from online has made it difficult aswell, Canyon et al are smashing out some great bikes at good prices and if you know what you are looking for and happy with the risk on sizing etc then It makes sense to go online.

I do see a future for smaller, workshop focused shops, Which have low rents, good margins on labour, and can source large quantity of parts and cheap prices. From our point of view the workshop side of things is doing well.

I also think larger places that offer more service, such as fitness classes, coaching, bike fitting etc, stand a better chance, but we are seeing decreased demand for things such as bike fitting in line with decreasing bike sales.

So I'm guessing we'll see this continue over the next year or so, whoever lasts the longest will pick up trade from the other closed shops and it will start to stabilise.

But yeah the boom is definitely over.

I'll also add the industry has always lagged behind other retail in terms of customer service, staff training etc, and is very poorly paid, so the retail experience in a lot of bike shops leaves a massive amount to be desired

Out of interest, are the distributors doing OK?

It's hard to get a straight answer from our distributors even the ones I get on with

From what I've garnered, distro's did really well out of selling to Wiggle/CRC etc, until they got so big they turned around to them and started demanding prices to cheap for them to make a decent profit on, and the heavy discounting is now hurting the perception of those brands (i.e your not a 'premium brand' anymore if you are constantly 40% off online) so we've seen a few brands start to slip away from the big online boys, and keep specific products for physical shops and not sell them to online

Also one thing to note is the reason you can get Shimano stuff so heavily discounted is not the fault of the UK distributors, it's grey market stuff. - A bike brand will do a deal with Shimano and buy say 10,000 Ultegra group sets to put on bikes, then only end up needing 9000, so a thousand will then get sold on cheap and they end up entering the UK market, which will then effects the profitability of shops that sell those bike brands, because the can't sell Shimano stuff at a profit anymore, losing a big chunk of income!

I do see a future for smaller, workshop focused shops, Which have low rents, good margins on labour, and can source large quantity of parts and cheap prices. From our point of view the workshop side of things is doing well.

this is why cycle ps closing down doesent make sense to me.

I have my last day in a LBS on Friday, leaving cause the another thing i am working on is going well, not sue to them closing but the main thing i have noticed is that google reviews are big thing.

In the last week we have had three 1* reviews.

1. Someone called the shop asking to buy the premises, as in the actual shop building, nothing to do with us. The guy that answered said so and then politely hung up... one star

2. Someone had an issue with there disc brakes, got a service (degreased etc) and seemed to solve the problem. Came back a week later and they were squeaking again, changed the pads and rotors and didnt charge for labour... said they had been up sold and didn't trust us, though the problem was fixed.... one star.

3. Someone turned up 15mins after closing, I had forgotten to rotate the sign to closed but was just locking the door. They said technically i was still open and needed to fix their bike. i had a party to go to and was late so said i was sorry i was closed and couldn't, i then explained where other bike shops in the area were... one star.

Moral of the story, don't just leave reviews for your LBS if they are bad, get on google and add a detailed 5* if they have done you a favour, only takes a minute and makes a HUGE difference in everyday commuting customer terms, making them more appealing that Halfords or Evans.

Save the LBS!

it's grey market stuff.

Good video:

https://youtu.be/1neZMncvzRk

this is why cycle ps closing down doesent make sense to me.

I suspect its mainly down to gentrification and the rise in rent.

Do you think some of that is about expectations?
i.e. they’d expect a corporate to close on time but maybe not a LBS

Totally, but there have been other times that i have stayed an hour after closing working on customers bikes while they wait so that they can get going, but there is rarely a positive review to reflect that.

Just something to think about, the world is becoming very like that Black Mirror review episode and that google star rating means a lot to 40 - 60 year old customers looking for a trust worthy service.

Just something to think about, the world is becoming very like that Black Mirror review episode and that google star rating means a lot to 40 - 60 year old customers looking for a trust worthy service.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/24/deliveroo-couriers-dystopia-union

that google star rating means a lot to 40 - 60 year old customers looking for a trust worthy service.

Ageist. I'm 40-60, and all I want in bike shop is owner/staff who aren't douches, hence Skinny Eric's, with Lucien's rather idiosyncratic ideas on running a shop, was the bestest shop ever.

The Wiggle Service Point model in AUS/NZ is the way things are going; mobile mechs come to you to fit the parts you bought on the internetz

Thats exactly what i mean, if you leave a review saying "owner/staff aren't douches" its a good thing and out ways the other one that is complaining for a reason that is completely arbitrary

you can get Shimano stuff so heavily discounted is not the fault of the UK distributors, it's grey market stuff

Yeah I heard this was killing Madison

What kind of nitwit actually has time to leave poxy 1 star Google reviews? It's a shop, run by humans, they have good days and bad days. Pffft.

Shame the bike industry doesn't advertise bike brands in the mass media, Like Cars.
https://youtu.be/iCt7T20N07U

that's what Clevermike is doing

GCN

Can employees respond to these bad reviews? Like eBay, TripAdvisor, etc

yeah, but it always looks bad.

we usually respond with a "come in to the shop and have a chat if you had a bad experiance and we will talk it through". They never come back to discuss it but often come back for more work to be done.

Popiel Cycles in Crystal Palace. Closed a while ago, but didn’t seem to last long. I think Blue Door bought lots of their Koga stock.

There’s still Elswood (aka the holdsworth guys but in new premesis) and Velosport.
http://www.elswoodcycleworks.com
https://www.velosport.uk

Both good at different things.