Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
Related Articles
After more than 2 years in charge of a bicycle shop in San Francisco, I cannot say that my experience within the sector has been good on a business level, although it has on a personal level with the people I have met in the sector.
As an investment, it would be difficult for me to encourage someone to start the adventure of a bike shop, which although it seems attractive today, due to the growing love of cycling, the reality is that profit margins and in-store returns are so low, coupled with the annual schedules of brands and distributors, that there are many other places to invest and obtain more interesting returns, and I’m not talking about risk, I’m talking about profitability.
Of course, I always say this from my experience in a humble and small store in a big city, with great competition and very large competitors, who looked for a model of differentiation with respect to the rest, and that although it worked; the relationship investment-profit was not enough to keep going.
The “bike” sector is a peculiar sector, until you are inside you do not realize how complicated and self-destructive it is. Little margin, huge competition, constant discounts and “price bust” to make money and exceed the month, schedules that are difficult to manage by small businesses every year, and coexistence between the physical and online store that is impossible to manage today by brands and dealers.
Coming from a professional career directly related to marketing and sales in six completely different sectors to this, the first thing that caught my attention is the bargaining power that suppliers and distributors have to the detriment of customers (stores), who are obliged to accept and comply with the purchase conditions, which they believe they can assume, to be able to work this brand or the other, which in most sectors I do not say that it is the other way around, but at least, the balance does not opt so much of a single side.
It is clear that the sector is maturing, but it is far from the necessary professionalization to consider it a mature market from a business point of view, since from a commercial point of view it is reaching a significant saturation level.
In my opinion, the bike boom has had very good years, in which we all wanted the latest, just as it happened with computers at the time, in which a new one came out every 6 months, more powerful, faster and better, and we all wanted to change it. But that too is over. Before it was unthinkable to have a computer for more than a year, but the market stabilized and now you have it for years and it does not become obsolete. I sense that it is a situation similar to what is happening in the bike market.
For a while it has sold a lot, there have been very important changes and innovations in materials and technology, improvements in many aspects that did mean something for the end customer, but we are reaching a point that the changes are beginning to be little more than details of aesthetics, or so minimal that they are not noticeable by 80% of users, and therefore, the change is not considered, which clearly affects sales.
You Might Need to Switch to Electric Bikes
However the situation may change if there is a significant change. Based on my experience dealing with bike sales, I can suggest that anyone who wants to open a bike shop should take a revolutionary step. Instead of just selling “conventional bikes”, why not try something different, selling electric bikes for example? Now is the era of electric bikes, following the trend of reducing fuel consumption. Electric bikes are faster than conventional ones but do not cause pollution. They are a very practical means of urban transportation and are able to meet urban dynamics that require higher speeds than what most conventional bicycles can achieve.
Maintenance of an electric bike is quite simple, unlike some people imagine. Electric bikes can be operated like conventional bicycles and can also be operated by electric motor power which is triggered by pedaling on the pedals. There are various types; you can even choose the type of MTB that is able to conquer off-road terrain.
If you are really interested in switching to ebikes then I can advise you to visit Haidong Bike https://hd-ebike.com/. That is the address of an official website of one of the largest ebikes providers in China. It is not an ordinary online ebikes shop because they provide a variety of electric bikes in large quantities and at prices that are much cheaper than “the market prices”. Obtaining stock at a price far below the market price is one of the requirements to be successful in this business. Hopefully my experience and advice gave you a useful perspective on starting an ebike business.
