LBS etiquette

[vickster]

That surprises me, I'd have thought there was more money to be made in labour charges over product margin / markup...

I had some bars and crosslevers fitted for a tenner, quite possibly at the same place as cuchilo. Took an hour. I bought the bars and levers in the shop, had the tape. If I had bought all the parts elsewhere there is no way the shop would have covered the lads pay let alone all the other costs of employment, having a shop etc. I expect most lbs make most money on bikes, must be at least 50% mark up vs cost price?

In my case, I did keep the old bars and levers

 

[Rob3rt]

I had some bars and crosslevers fitted for a tenner, quite possibly at the same place as cuchilo. Took an hour. I bought the bars and levers in the shop, had the tape. If I had bought all the parts elsewhere there is no way the shop would have covered the lads pay let alone all the other costs of employment, having a shop etc. I expect most lbs make most money on bikes, must be at least 50% mark up vs cost price?

In my case, I did keep the old bars and levers

They generally sell very few bikes (maybe big chains do, but smaller shops, no) and so it is not a major source of profit.

 

[akb]

Sod em. With all respect, no one should keeps old parts you change over..... Or motor mechs for that point.

Not much I can do with worn brake discs, tyres, old oil. The garage can keep them for all I care!

 

[KneesUp]

Have I got this right?

Your bike has got two sets of handlebars attached with zip ties, and you bought some beer off your LBS and then they gave you £20?

Is that it?

 

[ayceejay]

LBS etiquette: this is what a smart LBS would do:-
As he had ordered the Zipp bars and had them just laying around he would have put the kettle on, steamed off the decals and stuck them on the 'bars already on the bike he would have done a lot of swearing to impress you.
In turn you would have gone to Tesco and bought a six pack of cheap beer for him and 6 bottles of Stella, after drinking the 6 Stella's you would steam off the label and stuck them on the cheapo's and if there was any argument you would punch him in the mouth (Stella is known for this).
Or maybe this is what really happened hence the confusion (Stella is known for this too,

 

[vickster]

They generally sell very few bikes (maybe big chains do, but smaller shops, no) and so it is not a major source of profit.

This is a single brand store. I expect they sell a lot of bikes. As do the chains like evans

 

[Globalti]

It's very difficult to make serious money from fiddling around with other people's catastrophic bikes, I know because I tried it and discovered that repairing bikes is immensely depressing, dispiriting and hurts your back and you can't charge for all the ancillary time spent setting up, cleaning down, researching and acquiring parts and so on.

That said, yesterday my LBS offered to knock out then replace two bearings in my pal's wheel for £40.00. I bought the bearings for £6.00 then went home and did it myself for nowt.

 

[Gixxerman]

Is the answer 42 by any chance?
If not, I'm out of ideas.

 

[oldfatfool]

So to recap you paid £40 for some cheapo bars and there fitting to see if you liked the size. The LBS would have deducted the £30 from the zipps and fitted free if you had ordered from them.

You bought bars elsewhere and they fitted them for free but charged £21 for parts, they kept the old bars and you bought beer.

So you needed to save £51 +£beer to break even.

LBS seems fair enough to me considering the work done and been messed around a bit.

 

[Cuchilo]

So to recap you paid £40 for some cheapo bars and there fitting to see if you liked the size. The LBS would have deducted the £30 from the zipps and fitted free if you had ordered from them.

You bought bars elsewhere and they fitted them for free but charged £21 for parts, they kept the old bars and you bought beer.

So you needed to save £51 +£beer to break even.

LBS seems fair enough to me considering the work done and been messed around a bit.

How weird , that happened to me aswell

 

[KneesUp]

I was in a bike shop in London the other day and a bloke came in with a glove puppet of Zippy from Rainbow. The shop owner wasn't happy; "You're barred!" he said. The bloke with Zippy tried to bribe him with £21, but the owner basically bottled him out of the shop by hurling locally made craft beer at him (it's rough up North London) until he left.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

FWIW a bike shop owner yesterday told me that in April he reckoned he had fitted £1800 worth of accessories that customers had bought from the web instead of from him, at very little profit for the fitting because you can't really charge the true cost of your time and overheads.

Bike shops are all very very different.

My lbs says he makes more money out of fitting stuff bought on the interwebs than anything else. And he encourages folk to shop around "You'll get it much cheaper from Ribble/Merlin/ebay" and then bring the bits in. And if you order something from him which isn't something he stocks, like a Hope headset, he just charges RRP and fits for free.

 

[nickyboy]

Bike shops are all very very different.

My lbs says he makes more money out of fitting stuff bought on the interwebs than anything else. And he encourages folk to shop around "You'll get it much cheaper from Ribble/Merlin/ebay" and then bring the bits in. And if you order something from him which isn't something he stocks, like a Hope headset, he just charges RRP and fits for free.

He sounds like a smart guy. That's the future business model for most LBS. Can't carry the range of stock so get the MAMILs to order online, invariably they can't fit whatever they bought themselves (don't talk to me about mudguards). Fit it for them at a nice hourly rate. I suspect most LBS will become a place to go to get a few bits and bobs.....annexed to a thriving repair & maintenance operation

 

[GrumpyGregry]

He sounds like a smart guy. That's the future business model for most LBS. Can't carry the range of stock so get the MAMILs to order online, invariably they can't fit whatever they bought themselves (don't talk to me about mudguards). Fit it for them at a nice hourly rate. I suspect most LBS will become a place to go to get a few bits and bobs.....annexed to a thriving repair & maintenance operation

Seems things are going that way. And I'm glad it is working out for him as it is a real old skool cycle shop business he inherited from his Dad.

Being a tinkerer and inveterate fettler myself I did a Cytech course years ago and DIY everything apart from fitting headsets to new frames, and building 'best' wheels.