Foffa Bikes

He does get his stock at trade, it's just that with his volumes his trade price is more than the big discounters retail prices. People like CRC/Bikediscount don't buy from their national wholesaler, do they? They have OEM accounts directly with the manufacturers.

I understand this, it's why I said change supplier, to CRC.

I've worked in small shops and we used CRC a lot, it's often cheaper than low volume trade or only slightly dearer but even then you get free shipping (instead of the £5+ that wholesalers charge) and next day delivery when Madison will often take a few days even though they charging you more.

You can still add a small "handling fee" to the CRC price and be charging less than "full retail" to the customer.

With CRC, Wiggle, HighonBikes, Parker etc I dare say you could run a profitable business without any trade accounts.

As for the whole "online is killing the LBS" shite, no it's not, the LBS refusing to do anything beside stock the same old Altura/Giro/FSA/etc crap at full retail that can be found with 40-70% off in 5 minutes online or even in printed magazines is.

Only briefly worked in Siempre, Glasgow's answer to LMNH etc but they stocked really different brands, Morvelo, Fabric Horse, Georgia in Dublin, Cyclodelic, Anna Nichoola etc, not cheap stuff by any means but they sold loads of it.