MEC vs LBS - A Firsthand Experience

You need a bike part? You want it that day? Overtime Sports in Coquitlam.
No bike shop can have every part in stock but Gary tries his best. His prices are good.
As for smallish bike shops that sell a few brands of bikes and an assortment of gear. You need to keep inventory of parts to back the stuff your selling in your store. As an example if you sell Saint brakes then you should always have pads in stock. If you say "well order you some in"…….That dude is going shoppin elsewhere. You just lost a customer.
Bike shops dont make a dime on warranty returns. If shop is small and you boast about how your shop is about service then back the products you sell.
I dont get paid to do an estimate on a job. Its part of the service.

I dont think anyone expects this but theres gotta be a better solution to this "sorry, shop order day is Tuesday and its Wednesday today so youll have to wait another week before we order it" bullshit

How do car/van/truck repair businesses run? I see Lordco vans running around doing deliveries all the rime. You can bet theyve got a better solution than the one the distributors/lbs foist on us….

It's pretty simple. Do your homework on your equipment and your shop.

Pick equipment that is serviceable with standard parts.

Shoes with funky proprietary clips and breakable straps? Just get ones with laces.

Obscure brakes made by some company in Uzbekistan? Sorry I'll run Shimano or Sram.

Suspension components made by a company that only makes 100 units a year? Hmmm James is in N.Van and does FOX maybe Fox is going to be easier to get serviced.

If your dealer you bought your bike from doesn't keep good stock on the right bearings and DU bushing for them then that dealer just plain sucks.

Christ these are bike not some uber finiky space shuttles that constantly need to go back to NASA for calibration.

so you are pretty much asking your lbs to stock at least 1 of every item in lambert or norco catalog

I'd be happy if Norco stocked every item in the Norco catalogue!

I dont think anyone expects this but theres gotta be a better solution to this "sorry, shop order day is Tuesday and its Wednesday today so youll have to wait another week before we order it" bullshit

How do car/van/truck repair businesses run? I see Lordco vans running around doing deliveries all the rime. You can bet theyve got a better solution than the one the distributors/lbs foist on us….

I have zero issues with couriering products in on some 2JZ overnight from Japan steez. Whatever it takes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKXZT70gwNg

Christ these are bike not some uber finiky space shuttles that constantly need to go back to NASA for calibration.

Amen! For the bike they sold me, does my LBS stock
chains – checkmark
rear derailleurs – checkmark
derailleur hangers – double checkmark

I’m puzzled as to why you’d want to make this comparison. I don’t find it the least bit insightful. MEC has a fantastic return policy - moving right along. If I asked my LBS to sell me a Garmin, they’d tell me to go to MEC. IMO a LBS should have a single objective: to help me get on the trails as soon as possible. A broken gauge on a 2.5 year old pump was not standing in the way of riding your bike.

If you want to stand in line at MEC to return a pump that’s 2.5 years old, that’s your business. I would have preferred to drop it off at the LBS (making it their problem), use their pump to get me going, ask what was running good on the hill, have a quick chat about bikes, and be on my way.

Hmmm James is in N.Van and does FOX maybe Fox is going to be easier to get serviced.

QFT

I have zero issues with couriering products in on some 2JZ overnight from Japan steez. Whatever it takes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKXZT70gwNg

With Nas!

I'd be happy if Norco stocked every item in the Norco catalogue!

^This.

It's pretty simple. Do your homework on your equipment and your shop.

Interesting choice of words…what do you mean by homework?

Do you have time to call up your lbs and shoot the breeze with them on their parts inventory just in case you break something on the trail?

I certainly dont. I just wanna get back riding as soon as possible.

Heres what I want…

I want a web site where I enter the details of what I want. I want it to be hooked into the inventory of all the lbs with say 30 minutes drive of my current location. And I want the web site to spit back to me a list of all the shops with item in stock, sorted by either price or distance with the ability to reserve said item and provide me shop contact info and opening times…

Is there an app for that?;)

For the record, I dont usually run anything obscure (Magura brakes excepted) but 9 speed SRAM stuff seems to be lacking on the shelves of my lbs…

A lot of shops do not carry particular items because customers have shown they are unwilling to pay a price for that item that will allow them to stay in business. There is no point bringing in an item that will only ever sell once it’s put on sale. With the advent of online shops, price matching everything can end a LBS. So if you are wondering why your LBS has such shit selection, it’s because too many people are buying online or actively participating in the race to the bottom on price. When all you spend in your LBS is time, there is no money to spend on all the expensive inventory that you will never end up buying anyways because it’s cheaper online. This is not to say that the brands that sell their products online are free from blame. Personally I think brands should start distributing themselves and cut out the middle man entirely so that small shops can run business the same as MEC (distributor free).

Whats the point of having foo foo esoteric crap.? f you own a smaller bike shop just carry the stuff thats proven to work. And keep parts in stock for these products. Whining about how we shop online or wait for sales is a bullshit excuse for not having in stock what a rider needs when his stuff breaks or wears out.

if a shop is going to stock a brand (disc brakes, wheels, suspension forks / shocks, drivetrains or frames) it should stock the consumable parts for that brand, or offer quick turnaround for suspension servicing, whether this is a derailleur hanger or some bearings for the wheel hub

otherwise don't stock that 'brand' because you are not supporting that brand but merely making sales off it, without offering your customers any backup…