You are reading a single comment by @Dammit and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Dammit
That's certainly sounding rather like a bikeshop now? Which is no bad thing, but not what I thought you set out to create.
My take on it (and sorry if you think I'm going on a bit) would be that the vast majority of us make most of our bike part purchases from Internet retailers- this drives margins down, and bike shops have been forced to sharpen their prices in response.
Now I will only buy from a bikeshop if a) it's a friend working there or b) it's something I have to have at once. Otherwise I'll buy from Wiggle etc.
In my thought experiment cafe/workshop/bar I would get people to send their Internet purchases to the workshop.
They are registered members, so they'd get an email/PM/whatever saying "your bits are here".
Member would then pop by, use the nice tools to fit the part, have a coffee and a slice of cake and be on their way- or hang out until later and have some beers and a pie.
Focus on providing high margin items in order to keep other things as sharp as possible.