Opening a new shop.

A friend of mine wants to open a new bike shop. He's already got a premises thats trading as a successful workshop and he employs 3 FT guys on the spanners. In this new premises, he wants to move away from the fixing and focus more on selling product.

Whats your thoughts? What areas would you focus on? He has realistic ideas on what it could take year on year but currently is struggling to get any more accounts set up. He has no bike brands on board yet.

Dont sell anything other than service.
Dont sell services to anyone on here.

Good luck!

Never trust amey

Service with 4 guys could only ever hope to take, say 100k net......

He’d be lucky to be able to buy any bikes from any supplier this year as a new account tbh

E-bikes is where the money is. You do need a showroom in a nice part of town and at least £100k worth of stock on the floor though.

You can make a decent living out of a workshop, but not by doing £50 services and puncture repairs...

As above, e-bikes is the way to go and depending on the part of the country hes in could determine the stock - as of now he'll struggle to get stock
spoke to a friend who's a merida dealer and they are already taking orders for 2022 bikes

Sell fresh coffee, bike consumables, expertise and get really good at it. Make the venue a nice destination and collaborate with other services.

Otherwise you're competing with Wiggle/Decathlon/eBay/Bezos etc.

Cheers all....keep the thoughts coming

FWIW my trusted shop only sells dull bikes (Trek & Genesis) but is way better than another, larger outfit up the road that carries just about everything but can't stay even remotely organised/professional :)

I'd put mony into a coffee machine, somewhere to sit, and nice unisex toilets before even thinking about buying bikes.

While that sounds great, are you talking FOC coffee? And a place to sit? And customer toilets take up space in small premises.

This shop needs to turn a profit

Forget the bikes just open a cafe...

How do you get folk not busting your ass with price match? Or 'loyal' customers not rocking up on internet specials or with Wiggle parts and expecting them fitting??

Great customer service only goes so far

trading as a successful workshop and he employs 3 FT guys on the spanners.

Keep this going, his biggest concern is sourcing components which are getting rare as hen's teeth, some simple componentry can be delayed as long as several months at the very minimum.

Selling bikes go up and down, spannering however are generally consistent.

Charge a fee for the installing of parts bought elsewhere.

Charge a fee for building mail order bikes.

How do you get folk not busting your ass with price match?

Simple; we don't.

Always charges RRP, it's the quality of services that count, the majority of customers just want their bike fixed/get the right stuff from talking to the sales assistant.

If they buy the parts elsewhere (for servicing); we simply couldn't offer guarantee on it as it didn't come from us, if chain failed for instance, we can't offer refund/replacement.

Bike shops in Australia were offering Wiggle related services like assembling your Wiggle sourced bike and fitting your Wiggle parts as a thing as they were already so dominant in the parts biz they didn't bother trying to sell pedals.

Yes, a cafe cunningly disguised as a bike shop :-) Bike shops don't make money look at Cycle Repubic/ Halfords if they can't make it work who can ?

I do think there's lots of room for LMNH style venues.

Bike shops don't make money look at Cycle Repubic/ Halfords if they can't make it work who can ?

Cycle Republic was doing well, it's the fact that Tredz (also owned by Halfords) make them more money than Cycle Republic simply due to the lack of brick and mortar to maintain, so they decide to just close Cycle Republic and keep investing in Tredz to sell bicycles, while Halfords have a much diminished workshop for the bare necessity of servicing bicycles.

Selling bicycles make more money than servicing bicycles*.

It didn't end well, as customers from Tredz (and Halfords, even Evans Cycles) often come to Cycle Republic for servicing.

*as mentioned earlier, while selling bikes net a bigger profit, it's very much dependent on the market, whether servicing bicycles will always remain consistent as long the workshop is up to dates and maintain quality of workmanship.

I have always wondered why Halfords closed the bussiness down? It looked like a good idea, it looked profitable. I've always assumed it was the bottom line.

It was actually doing better than Evans Cycles, which is saying a lots.

I do think there's lots of room for LMNH style venues.

Could well be wrong but my understanding of that business is that it was started by three people. One with an understanding of bikes, one with an understanding of Cafe's and one with an understanding of business. Without one of them you could argue that it wouldn't of worked.

To the OP, (and apologies if this is a dumb thought) is sharing the space viable? Potential to reduce overheads and increase footfall? A cafe can work (pre covid) but it's tough and you need someone that knows what they're doing.

Not much money in coffee tbf

This is the full P&L for my place https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AnfD6HCd4ICbcDckQ4dQvPNK7eivGZp55hZBEV7rRBY/edit?usp=sharing

A cafe can work (pre covid) but it's tough and you need someone that knows what they're doing.

Seabass Cycles as far to my knowledge shut their cafe down after a short while, it's possible, but not easy.