Why have shops started offering poor choices of accessories?
Discussion
I've been out and about today to get a few things done and to escape the heat in the flat, and been into 3 different bike shops to look for a pair of road shoes, yet couldn't find any. Between all 3 covering a 30 mile line of the A1, all I could buy were Shimano, Bontrager and Specilaized, 1 shop only had 3 shoes in total, yet had 6 bikes in the rack between 4 and 6 grand!
I know the internet has taken off and put a lot of the smaller shops out of business or at least caused them to rethink their product lines, but it was a poor show in the accessory fronts. Shoes weren't the only things lacking either, pedals were lacking as well, with only a couple of choices of models, and clothing as well. That same shop that had 40k sitting around doing nothing only stocked Endura, no Fox or anything similar, and no, I don't expect them to stock Rapha or Condor etc.
Has the internet killed choice that much in this game? I can appreciate bikes being limited to certain makes for obvious tie ins, and sheer expense.
Taking the other sport I do, archery, I can walk into my local dealer, and have the choice between 4 makes of bow, at least 4 makes of arrow with about 30 odd models, and more manufacturers of accessories than I can name here.
Yes, I am prepared to pay full RRP for shoes in a shop, shoes are the one things I have to try on before buying, call me fussy if you like. Todays bill could have been £250 if I'd bought pedals as well, yet no one offered me the choice to even contemplate getting the wallet out.
I know the internet has taken off and put a lot of the smaller shops out of business or at least caused them to rethink their product lines, but it was a poor show in the accessory fronts. Shoes weren't the only things lacking either, pedals were lacking as well, with only a couple of choices of models, and clothing as well. That same shop that had 40k sitting around doing nothing only stocked Endura, no Fox or anything similar, and no, I don't expect them to stock Rapha or Condor etc.
Has the internet killed choice that much in this game? I can appreciate bikes being limited to certain makes for obvious tie ins, and sheer expense.
Taking the other sport I do, archery, I can walk into my local dealer, and have the choice between 4 makes of bow, at least 4 makes of arrow with about 30 odd models, and more manufacturers of accessories than I can name here.
Yes, I am prepared to pay full RRP for shoes in a shop, shoes are the one things I have to try on before buying, call me fussy if you like. Todays bill could have been £250 if I'd bought pedals as well, yet no one offered me the choice to even contemplate getting the wallet out.
A lot of it is down to the distributor, Madison for example are the distributor of Shimano stuff so that shop may not be able to stock non-Madison brands. Bontrager are the in-house brand for Trek so I'd guess that shop is a Trek dealer?
I know what you mean though, its annoying having at least ten bike shops in Bristol but having to wander round all of them to try on things, at least I know what they are stock now and what brands I like, what fits me etc... most of the time I just default to wiggle though.
I know what you mean though, its annoying having at least ten bike shops in Bristol but having to wander round all of them to try on things, at least I know what they are stock now and what brands I like, what fits me etc... most of the time I just default to wiggle though.
Celtic Dragon said:
shoes are the one things I have to try on before buying, call me fussy if you like
Did you try talking to them? I'm sure they'd be happy to order in anything you were interested in, but expecting them to keep in stock every size in every style is expecting a bit much.Alternatively just order all the ones you want to try online then return the one you don't want. There is a reason internet shops offer such good return policies.
Gassing Station | Pedal Powered | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff