Small town bike shop?

[Bicycle808]

I used to work in the LBS here in my small town, and i still drop in pretty frequently..Our town is really small, but it's surrounded by other small towns and, for outsiders, it's sometimes impossible to tell if you're still in Town "A" or if you've entered Town "B".... so, arguably, my part of Camden County could be viewed as a network of small towns that form one larger super-suburb.... at any rate, the shop owner has been selling online to bolster the regular brick-n-mortar retail sales. Seems like he's constantly getting better at it, too...And it's a good thing as i'm not sure the shop would survive without supplemental online sales.

My best advice is to (carefully) try to sell used bikes, and when you pick what lines of new bikes you want to offer, go with brands that are easy on their low-volume dealers (eg, Jamis, RedLine, SE, Marin)... going with the "bigger" names (eg Trek, Specialized) could kill you outright, as they have massive minimum orders, minimum expected yearly sales, requirements to stock certain models that you might not be able to sell in your location, etc.... the terms can be pretty brutal for a small-scale shop.

 

[Chips_Mahoy]

That's one thing I'm really curious about......minimum order. I've been wondering if the initial minimum order is based off the store's size, predicted sales and demographics.

 

[Bicycle808]

It all depends on who you're dealing with... some manufacturers will have a few different "levels" or tiers, where they predict your sales potential, and base the terms off of what you could be expected to move. Others will have a more simple scheme, with a flat minimum order; most will want a minimum initial annual order, and once you've made that, you can make much smaller orders as the year goes on. Some of the big names might take a look at your shop and the small town it's in, and they might not even want to start an account for you. You also may have trouble becoming a particular brand's dealer if you're too close to an existing dealer that carries the same brand. (eg, you want to carry Trek but there's already a shop selling Trek 10 miles away...)


For QBP, you'll need to set up an account, and they'll want pics/"proof" that you're an actual shop... they may even send a rep out to check your location out. QBP has minimum orders, but it's a pretty low figure, and you can usually fill it out with some commonly sold repair parts (tubes, tires, etc...) That being said, we found that the smaller, regional wholesalers had much better prices, so we ordered whatever we could from the little guys and only used QBP for stuff we couldn't source at the other wholesalers.