[HN Gopher] A bike parts company ditched Amazon to support indie...
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A bike parts company ditched Amazon to support indie shops instead
Author : nabilhat
Score : 286 points
Date : 2021-08-23 17:51 UTC (5 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| tomaszs wrote:
| I was considering to use Amazon Fulfillment for Summon The JSON
| decks. However, it occurred to be very expensive. My customers
| are fine to wait a couple of days. They can also choose fast
| manufacturing, to get decks faster. I don't fell I miss anything
| by not selling or fulfilling by Amazon.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| This doenst surprise me at all. There are more and more sellers
| that are frustrated with how amazon deals with them.
|
| Amazons top priority is the customer, and thats how they got to
| this point, but everyone else suffers, from their 3rd party
| sellers to their suppliers to their own employees.
|
| Here is a list of stuff Amazon does:
|
| -Anti competitive behaviour on the buy box (Amazon doesnt have
| the product in stock. You have it, but your offer is still not
| shown)
|
| -Banning sellers for no good reason, and you cant contact anyone
| helpful
|
| -Screwing over their suppliers with Vendor Central, where they
| buy from you wholesale. They dont pay, they just say the goods
| were never delivered and dont accept your proof of delivery. I
| know sellers who are owed over 30k from amazon.
|
| -Customers are able to send back items 1 year later. If you dont
| agree, they can file an "AZ claim". If you get too manu claims,
| they ban you.
|
| -Support for sellers is the worst combination of overseas call
| centers using some cookie cutter templates to answer questions.
| Often you are just copy pasting your question 5 times, until you
| get somebody with have a brain
|
| -Use data from their sellers to create their own products and
| then force them out of the market
|
| -creating huge incentives for chinese sellers which flood and
| undercut the local sellers
|
| Its just a huge behemoth were nobody knows whats going on.
|
| In my opinion this company needs to be split up by gov and
| reigned in.
|
| But who knows, maybe more sellers will follow suit and the
| pressure will be increasing to change things.
| analog31 wrote:
| >>> -creating huge incentives for chinese sellers which flood
| and undercut the local sellers
|
| In my view, another way of looking at it is that selling on
| Amazon favors sellers who can figure out how to manage those
| risks, and one way of doing it is to be basically a "fly by
| night" business. If you can spin up multiple sellers, make your
| nut on the first sale, and pull the plug on the seller if
| anything goes wrong, you've got what it takes.
|
| Or, if your margins are high enough that you can afford to eat
| the bad sales.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| >> Banning sellers for no good reason, and you cant contact
| anyone helpful.
|
| I must be getting old.
|
| How did these companies get so massive without any meaningful
| customer service departments? Amazon, Google, Facebook and
| many, many others where customer service is not even bothered
| with, yet people continue to use their products and services.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| You do sound like my parents. They were mainframe programmers
| in the 70s and still every time I complain about wierd issues
| I'm having with programming, they'll keep asking me if I've
| called tech support.
|
| They can't wrap their head around how you can have useful-ish
| software with shitty incomplete out of date documentation and
| tech support via people competing to get noticed on
| StackOverflow for their resume.
|
| The more time goes on, I'm not sure I can wrap my head around
| it either...
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _How did these companies get so massive without any
| meaningful customer service departments? Amazon, Google,
| Facebook and many, many others where customer service is not
| even bothered with, yet people continue to use their products
| and services._
|
| As a customer, I've had no trouble reaching Amazon customer
| service when I need help, and they've always been helpful -
| refunding or replacing the defective product.
| JohnFen wrote:
| As a customer, I only needed customer service from them
| once (in the over 10 years I've been buying from them). My
| experience was truly terrible, and I ended up losing my
| money.
| theturtletalks wrote:
| It's because they make it super easy for the customer, but
| use dark patterns for the sellers. Amazon can afford to lose
| sellers since more are popping up everyday and willing to
| sell items for a loss to gain market share.
|
| The parent also didn't mention that Amazon has a policy of
| not allowing sellers to sell their products for a lower price
| on their own website. If only customers knew how much Amazon
| is screwing over sellers, they would be wary. Many sellers I
| know themselves don't shop on Amazon themselves due to this.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Amazon has a policy of not allowing sellers to sell their
| products for a lower price on their own website.
|
| This is why, when I decided to ditch Amazon, I also decided
| to avoid buying from companies that sell on Amazon.
| andromeduck wrote:
| I'd buy from vendor sites if it weren't always such a pita
| between checkouts, shipping and refunds.
| bushbaba wrote:
| As a customer why should I care about the seller
| experience. As a customer I've only ever cared about the
| customer buying experience
| fossuser wrote:
| Agreed - Amazon knows who their real customers are and
| they have leverage over the sellers.
|
| It does surprise me though that given that there's a lot
| of counterfeit junk and scam-like sellers on the site
| (which is a pretty bad customer experience). You'd think
| they'd shut that down.
|
| In practice it doesn't matter because prime shipping is
| so much better than any non-amazon option I just deal
| with that risk (with some exceptions where I'll buy
| directly from the creator of the product).
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > In practice it doesn't matter because prime shipping is
| so much better than any non-amazon option I just deal
| with that risk
|
| Really? I'm strongly considering canceling my prime
| subscription specifically because shipping has gotten so
| awful. Amazon won't even _allow_ you to select a shipping
| speed anymore. Pretty much everywhere else on the
| internet is better.
| fossuser wrote:
| My recent experience with non-amazon shipping:
|
| - Ordered a blanket directly from the blanket maker's
| website, order details were delayed, no shipping notice,
| no out of stock notice, order took 4 months to arrive (it
| was supposed to be a gift).
|
| - Ordered some flatware from MOMA was charged and no
| shipping details updated, I waited six weeks before
| emailing them - they said the system 'lost the order' I
| had to have paypal reverse the charges.
|
| There are other examples, but generally non-amazon sucks
| - even in the best of cases it's twice as long and
| usually expensive.
|
| With Amazon I often get two day, next day, or even same
| day shipping for free. Packages arrive typically well
| packaged and undamaged and the tracking is really good.
| If there are any issues they are quick to resolve it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| None of that is like my most recent interactions with
| Amazon.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Packages arrive typically well packaged and undamaged
|
| That's another thing. Amazon used to ship things in boxes
| with appropriate padding. Now they're shipping books in
| manila envelopes, with predictable damage to the book
| from the tightness of the envelope.
| fossuser wrote:
| I wonder if there's regional variation depending on
| warehouses? I'm in SF and have had pretty good
| experiences.
|
| It's mostly a comparison I'm making to alternatives which
| I've found to be worse (usually the non-amazon packaging
| is terrible).
| JohnFen wrote:
| > prime shipping is so much better than any non-amazon
| option
|
| This isn't as true as it used to be, and it's getting
| less true as time goes on.
| pengaru wrote:
| Short-term convenience wins every time.
| kelvin0 wrote:
| The retail customers who end up buying the stuff are lavishly
| treated. The small businesses which sell their products on
| Amazon are not really 'customers' and are treated like 5th
| class citizens. Proof and burden rests on these suppliers
| shoulders.
| ozzythecat wrote:
| >In my opinion this company needs to be split up by gov and
| reigned in.
|
| I think there are a lot of things Amazon can do better, but
| your solution is interesting.
|
| "I am not happy with Amazon. The company should be broken up by
| the government."
|
| If everything you stated is absolutely true and systemic
| issues, IMO let the market and consumers punish Amazon.
|
| It sounds like you're saying Amazon is good enough that it's
| impossible to take away their customer base. On the other hand,
| you're describing what seems to be a completely broken company
| not worth a minute of my time.
|
| Which is it?
| Qi_ wrote:
| Another one: inventory pooling. When a product is "fulfilled by
| Amazon," it comes from warehouse stock. However this stock can
| be contributed to by all sorts of sellers, legit or
| counterfeit. So sometimes buyers will receive a knockoff when
| they purchased a legitimate product. I have a relative who
| designs and sells electronics accessories, and he said this is
| a serious problem he runs into when selling on Amazon.
| bisby wrote:
| This is one of the things they do that could be spun as "pro
| seller". As a consumer, I don't like buying from vendors that
| I can't verify how much I trust them. So "fulfilled by
| Amazon" convinces consumers to buy with confidence, and even
| a no-name seller can get sales without having to compete on
| reputation. This means that consumers actually can't trust
| where they are buying from.
|
| I very much don't like this as a consumer.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| It's also pro-consumer since it means that you get your
| order faster. Instead of sending you the widget that was
| warehoused across the country by your seller, they can sell
| you the one that was warehoused near your house by a
| different seller.
|
| (in theory they could always just ship it across the
| country, but then they'll have to raise shipping prices)
|
| Mingling counterfeit products with genuine products is a
| problem, but since I rarely know Amazon merchants, I'm not
| sure that's considerably worse than not mingling at all, I
| could just as likely try to buy from a merchant that's
| selling counterfeits.
| amznthrwaway wrote:
| Inventory commingling is a choice that can be made by the
| seller.
| withinrafael wrote:
| Sellers can opt in/out of the inventory commingling you
| describe. But perhaps there are restrictions/conditions that
| make this harder than it sounds.
| freeopinion wrote:
| > Amazons top priority is the customer
|
| This is not and should not be true. If it were true, Amazon
| would operate completely differently. It should be more true
| than it is.
| munk-a wrote:
| For at least one specific example - Amazon does an extremely
| poor job vetting products posted on its site which causes a
| lot of defective items to end up getting piped through it to
| consumers. Prioritizing your customer over everything else
| means delivering a high quality consistent product - which it
| fails to do with regular listings and fails spectacularly to
| do with Amazon Basics.
| dangus wrote:
| IMO you're misunderstanding the customer.
|
| The customer wants cheap. They WANT Amazon to be AliExpress
| with fast shipping.
|
| That's why Amazon has free returns and they offer returns
| in a million different ways.
|
| Amazon doesn't care that it's inefficient on resources and
| that these items end up in a landfill. The manufacturing
| cost of cheap items is so low that it's no big deal. As
| long as the customer has no friction in buying or returning
| they are happy.
|
| I think there are certain categories of products where many
| customers would actually prefer counterfeit items as long
| as the quality is acceptable. Just walk down a cereal
| aisle.
| munk-a wrote:
| IMO you're misunderstanding _this_ customer. The returns
| are pretty friction-less but they 're still a burden that
| I'd rather not deal with - and I specifically don't want
| to order an electrical device off amazon and have it fail
| in a spectacular way that damages my other equipment.
|
| The most luxurious thing you can tell me as a seller is
| that you're minimizing the longest potential time until I
| have a correctly functioning product - shipping is a big
| part of that, but not having to go through the hassle of
| getting it shipped out twice and returning one of them is
| another component.
|
| Also I think AliExpress is a pretty terrible comparison -
| Amazon does beat it hand over fist. I think Amazon wants
| to be NewEgg but with less shipping time (and maybe the
| reputation it had a decade ago - it seems to be
| struggling lately). And it wants to be every other
| specialist store as well. I _think_ it 's possible for
| them to do this, but the thing they're lacking right now
| is the budget or motivation to actually vet products -
| they rely on peer reviews and manufacturer statements to
| try and suggest products.
| ilamont wrote:
| _Amazon follows a core set of Leadership Principles (LPs)
| that we Amazonians aspire to every day. They are ingrained in
| our culture, and they guide the behaviors we value. It's very
| telling that the first LP is Customer Obsession--leaders
| start with the customer and work backwards. They work
| vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders
| pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers._
|
| https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries/an-inside-look-at-
| th...
| jorblumesea wrote:
| haaaaah
|
| Anyone who knows Amazon knows there's tons of politics and
| leeway in those LPs, and they get twisted for nefarious
| purposes.
| ruddct wrote:
| Would love to hear how a catalog riddled with counterfeits,
| fake reviews and listing-hijacking is a Customer Obsession.
|
| Not trolling, Ex-Amazon so I'm curious how current
| Amazonians rationalize these things.
| Spivak wrote:
| Because you're focusing on small but visible details that
| are hard unsolved problems for a company that's Amazon's
| size.
|
| If you have the solution to any of these problems you
| would have a genuinely game-changing business and would
| be a 100M company selling it to every online marketplace.
| freeopinion wrote:
| There you go. You just prioritized size over solving
| those problems. It is more important to be big than to
| get it right.
| travoc wrote:
| These are not small details to be dismissed flippantly.
| Counterfeits and tainted listings are dangerous,
| especially considering how many health-related products
| are sold on Amazon.
| bityard wrote:
| You're taking this to mean something different than the
| parent intended. The intended meaning is more along the lines
| of the old trope, "the customer is always right." This means
| that in any dispute between the seller and the buyer, Amazon
| favors the buyer 99% of the time. To the point that it's
| incredibly easy (and common) to be a hobbyist Amazon scammer
| as long as you stick to scamming marketplace sellers instead
| of Amazon itself.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| It's so interesting to see how the pandemic hits different
| countries in different ways. This article talks about struggling
| bike shops. The truth couldn't be any more different in Germany.
| Bike shops were run over by customers because so many more people
| wanted to either go to work by bike instead of public
| transportation, or they had no work to do so they decided to go
| biking in their new spare time. Repair shops are super busy, but
| now there's a shortage in bike parts, too...
| analog31 wrote:
| There was a huge run on bikes in the US. I think a number of
| factors were involved. Because cycling in the US is mostly
| recreational, the bike business is seasonal, and retailers lay
| in their entire years stock for delivery in the springtime. If
| there's a big change in demand, it can take them a year to
| react.
|
| Then those bikes didn't show up because of shipping delays.
|
| Then there was a big spike in demand, as people realized a
| couple of things: 1) Cycling is an outdoor activity that seems
| like it carries a minimal COVID risk. 2) It's a way of getting
| to work if you're still working but public transit is shut
| down. These things, together, ramped up demand for both cheap
| and expensive bikes simultaneously.
|
| Shops ran out of bikes, and then it became very hard to stay in
| business, even if there was still demand for repairs and parts.
|
| Bike parts have always been a problem in the US. There's too
| much variety for any shop to be able to maintain a decent
| stock, so a lot of things have to be ordered. In my own case,
| since I ride older bikes, it's highly tempting to order stuff
| from Amazon or even (preferably) eBay because of the selection.
| Some stuff, such as Sturmey Archer hub parts, have to be
| sourced from overseas.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I'm surprised about the inventory thing. I ride an 03
| Cannondale road bike that uses all standard stuff-- screw-in
| bottom bracket, band-on front derailleur, 9-speed shifters.
| I've always been able to get parts for it off the shelf at
| multiple shops, to the point that basically nothing on it is
| original other than the frame.
|
| But this has even been the case with my much-weirder winter
| bike, my kids' bikes that have off-brand shifters, etc.
|
| I know Sheldon Brown (RIP) catalogues a true nightmare
| history of incompatibilities that have built up over the
| years, but I think in reality, most of that stuff is
| pre-1990. If you have a non-imported bike purchased in the
| last three decades, it's going to either be Shimano or be
| knockoff parts that are Shimano-compatible.
| zwieback wrote:
| I think that's basically the same situation here in the US,
| bike shops are super busy but the supply chain can't keep up. I
| also have to say that most bike shops I've visited aren't that
| good. They seem to have an over-supply of awkward young sales
| staff giving middling advice while facing an undersupply of
| bikes and parts. Also, the constant churn in componentry is not
| helping.
| jetrink wrote:
| It sounds like the bike shops were struggling due to low
| inventory, not low demand. Anecdotally, that was the case at
| the bike shops near me in Chicago, which had empty shelves, but
| also months-long wait lists for their tuneup and repair
| services. Unfortunately, bike sales are a large part of their
| revenue.
| jwagenet wrote:
| > By the start of 2021, Kerson heard of bike shops on the brink
| of closing down due to such high demand and low inventory.
|
| It sounds like shops should have done well, but we're subject
| to shortages which lead to purchases at online retailers
| instead.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Demand was high in 2020, but bike shops (in the US) generally
| have poor cash flow overall. Dealers were able to clear their
| inventory, but there was no supply to replenish it, leaving
| them with empty showrooms. Even today, inventory is spotty and
| the wait for certain models of bikes is well into 2022.
| yardie wrote:
| Bike shops in the US have been struggling since the beginning
| of the pandemic. Some got a slight bump with increased sales.
| And riders that couldn't buy new brought in old bikes for
| repair. Eventually, supply chain issues surfaced and you can't
| sell what you can't buy.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I love this trend. I stopped using Amazon last year, and I'm very
| interested in doing business with companies who chose likewise.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| It's a start.
|
| See also "Parallel Polis":
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Polis
|
| And, Havel's _The Power of the Powerless_ :
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless
| a-dub wrote:
| amusingly there's nothing particularly new here in terms of the
| alternatives they're exploring. i used to work in a local bike
| shop and thought about even doing bike parts e-commerce in the
| 90s. bicycles and parts have always been a high touch business.
| manufacturers treat local bike shops like customers, assign reps
| who visit to ensure merchandising standards and have strict rules
| regarding pricing to ensure all the shops can survive.
|
| it amuses me to read that they're setting that up now as if it's
| new, as it is how it used to work for a very long time.
| [deleted]
| mariushn wrote:
| Related trivia: Jeff Bezos's father was a local bike shop owner:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP80jo1_UgU
| greenie_beans wrote:
| wow! the irony is rich. i wonder how amazon impacted his small
| business?
| dkhenry wrote:
| I am happy the parts company is ditching Amazon, but its so much
| more important for us consumers to ditch amazon. I have cut my
| amazon purchases down to only 16 total items this year so far (
| down from ~50 in 2020 ) and I am now only ordering from Amazon as
| a last option when I cant find what I want anywhere else. That
| brief glimpse of the Amazon future where all stores are shut
| down, and we can only ever buy things online, and everyone is an
| amazon serf was such a wakeup call as to what we were heading
| towards. I just hope enough people can jump ship to keep a
| functioning non amazon centric supply chain.
| Rapzid wrote:
| I like Amazon and online shopping; won't ditch any time soon
| and don't think it's important for people to do so.
|
| The local businesses I was worried about going under were
| restaurants and others in the food/service industry(would lump
| experience in there as well; the zoo, botanical garden,
| museums, and etc).
| jungturk wrote:
| > don't think it's important for people to do so
|
| Is that because you don't believe in the negative
| externalities or because you think they're worth the
| convenience?
| dkhenry wrote:
| And I believe its exploitive of everyone in the supply chain,
| from manufacturers to delivery drivers, and has led to the
| vast centralization of an overwhelmingly large portion of our
| economy into the hands of corporation with no accountability.
|
| Furthermore I am very convinced it makes the lives of
| everyone, except the tiny minority that are actively
| exploiting everyone else, much worse. Good jobs are lost,
| supply chains are made fragile, and monopolistic tendencies
| are encouraged. I would rather the inconvenience of shopping
| around than encourage a world with a private entity as the
| sole source of all consumer goods.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Yeah, but we are never going to stop that behavior by
| individuals choosing not to shop at Amazon. As an
| individual, my only two choices are to shop at Amazon and
| get the benefits and Amazon still exists, or don't shop
| there and don't get the benefits and Amazon still exists.
| Amazon is not going to care if they lose my business. The
| only person who suffers is me.
|
| If we think Amazon business practices are immoral, we need
| to make them illegal.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > I am happy the parts company is ditching Amazon, but its so
| much more important for us consumers to ditch amazon.
|
| Conversely, maybe it's important for both big and small
| businesses to realize that investing in your online presence
| and building out a high-quality local delivery network is
| _much_ more important than the high-rent place on Main Street?
|
| A lot of the reasons I buy on Amazon are that it offers a much
| more _pleasant_ experience. In fact, if you go to the
| manufacturers ' sites for a lot of the products Amazon sells,
| they have a slow checkout process, scammy discount codes and
| email signup incentives, and generally optimize for consumer
| lock-in rather than getting the product to the consumer
| quickly. Imagine Google if it had popped up a discount code for
| "Get 200 searches at 15% off!" every time you searched for
| something, and think of how successful they would be if they
| did that.
|
| As for a lot of small-time local shops I know, they seem to
| place an unduly high value on prime real estate, and their
| websites are at the level of "My nephew says he knows
| Dreamweaver".
|
| In summary, I am not super surprised they are being beaten out
| by Amazon, and it is unclear to me as to why _I_ should
| subsidize their bad web design and reluctance to invest in
| building a consumer-friendly online experience.
| iso1210 wrote:
| In the UK we had shops that sold everything -- Argos has done
| catalogue shopping for decades. Sainsburys, a major
| supermarket, owns them, and does delivery.
|
| Amazon makes it trivial to buy pretty much anything I want and
| get it the next day. Sainsburys sells the same stuff between
| themselves and argos, yet they failed miserably at competing.
| They could have worked with companies like royal mail and
| leverage their logistics expertise to compete, but they failed
| miserably to even realise why I shop at amazon.
|
| I'm not some 1970s afficiando going out to a high street to buy
| something in person, it's very unlikely I _need_ something
| right then and can 't wait for 24 hours for someone to bring it
| to me. I have better things to do with my time.
| dkhenry wrote:
| It's not the mega conglomerates they are putting out of
| business. It's the bike stores, the hobby shops, the clothing
| boutiques. In the US with the purchase of Whole Foods, they
| are also moving more into groceries and everything else.
| After experiencing not being able at all to go to a high
| street and buy things and forcing everything to be online, I
| realized just how bad the experience is, and decided if I had
| to choose between the two I would choose the physical
| experience.
|
| Once you do that you start to realize just how much of the
| consumer goods world Amazon has already put out of business.
| I live in silicon valley and there is no where I can go for
| electronics any more. My last amazon purchase was getting
| some 2.5A fuses because every store that would sell them
| locally has closed ( either before the pandemic, or because
| of it ). I tried to buy a video card, and the local computer
| equipment retailer literally couldn't get allocated any stock
| from the manufacturers, somehow Amazon managed to get first
| dibs on supply. I don't like that world, and I don't want to
| live in it.
| sefrost wrote:
| I was at Argos between 2012 and 2013. Fresh out of
| university. At one point during my time there, for around
| five or six weeks, me and another graduate were the only
| front end developers on the entire Argos website. At that
| stage I don't think I knew the difference between margin and
| padding in CSS just to give you an idea of our level.
|
| It was truly chaotic. The amount of money they wasted on
| Accenture consultants should be criminal. I know it's a
| cliche to say money is wasted on consultants, but really, no
| work happened. A lot of energy was expended but nothing was
| built or created.
|
| I was in a newly formed "innovation hub" which had a lot of
| very talented people but we were blocked from doing anything
| by internal and external staff at every turn.
|
| One time we tried to have a QA environment set up so that we
| could demo and test our work. We were told it would take _9
| months_ to provision a server for us. We were a team of about
| 20 in expensive central London office space and we didn't
| have an environment to test our work. It took about 8 hours
| to do a deploy to production, so if something was broken the
| BEST CASE scenario was it would take 8 hours to fix. I never
| saw the best case scenario.
|
| The most talented and motivated staff in the innovation hub
| slowly left after we were told that the pace of change had to
| be "glacial".
|
| Argos never stood a chance of competing against Amazon.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| Good. PNW bikes (and treefort and some others) do good stuff.
|
| At this point selling on amazon makes me trust you less -- i've
| gotten way too many fake parts accidentally over the years to
| trust them with.
| jrd259 wrote:
| > After leaving his job in global business development at Amazon,
| Aaron Kerson used his knowledge of the platform's sales
| algorithms to power up his new business.
|
| Don't corporations typically have non-compete clauses to prevent
| an employee from exploiting proprietary knowledge they gained
| while working for the firm? Would we be supportive of someone who
| left (e.g.) a small bicycle parts company to help Amazon rule
| that market?
| tkahnoski wrote:
| Yes... (not a lawyer so grain of salt here) There are three
| basic tools for IP protection:
|
| 1) Copyright - protects outright copying of an IP asset 2)
| Patent - protects against the reimplementation of the same IP
| 3) Trade Secret - Similar to patent, but enforcement is
| trickier especially for software as you have to demonstrate a
| benefit to it being secret as well as your efforts to keep it
| secret.
|
| Non-competes are more of a blunt instrument and a controversial
| topic. Amazon is infamous for having them. Typically only hear
| of companies trying to enforce these at executive level as any
| enforcement at a lower level can impact recruiting heavily.
| OliverJones wrote:
| In the bike-parts and other speciality manufacturing
| businesses, there's a fourth barrier to entry for new
| competitors: reputation for quality.
|
| Quality matters a whole lot for the kind of products PNW
| makes. Not every cyclist has the ability to figure out
| whether a part was manufactured correctly (no cracks or voids
| in castings, etc etc).
|
| Maybe they outsource them. But finding contract manufacturers
| who do a good job is a highly skilled business.
|
| And cyclists depend on stuff like this to work. I once had
| the top of a cheapo seatpost break off on a road bike, in the
| late fall, far from home. Cheezy metal manufacturing. Cold
| couple of hours waiting for a rescue. Happily I didn't crash.
|
| I learned my lesson. Now I buy stuff from my local bike shop,
| or sometimes REI if I'm far from home. The possibility of
| counterfeit parts is frightening. I know I can trust the
| local bike shop to source decent parts.
| fossuser wrote:
| In California non-competes are [edit: unenforceable] (it's
| arguably one of the reasons for Silicon Valley's success).
|
| It varies by state though, so not sure about Washington and
| elsewhere.
| matmatmatmat wrote:
| Nit: They are unenforcable, but not illegal in themselves:
| https://www.callahan-law.com/are-non-competes-enforceable-
| in...
| fossuser wrote:
| Yep - you're right, edited and fixed.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| When he started the company in 2015, presumably he wasn't
| competing with Amazon (by selling products on their platform
| that they don't have their own brand of). By now, I'd assume
| any non-compete that might cover "don't sell products that
| compete with us" have expired.
| samstave wrote:
| I've biked THOUSANDS of miles in the last years - growing up in
| Tahoe biking all through the 80s... Heck this month alone I have
| biked nearly 500 miles (26 miles a day, 29" mtn....
|
| Anyway, Have you dealt with a lot of "local bike shops" -- I have
| dealt with too many to count.
|
| Lets look at a few pros and cons of "local bike shops":
|
| Pro:
|
| -- Support a local business
|
| -- Go in and talk to an actual person? (maybe)
|
| Cons:
|
| -- Many gear-head bike shop employees (specifically the
| mechanics) have a BOFH attitude, are gruff, rarely have time to
| talk - generally have an attitude.
|
| -- Many of the local shops are now pushing bikes that are fucking
| $10,000 -- I looked at a bike in Mikes Bikes just last week - and
| it was $15,000
|
| -- Gear selection is limited to a couple brands, and prices are
| no better than amazon
|
| -- Bike shops aren't like starbucks - they are fucking far apart.
|
| -- I have biked DAILY for over a decade. I have gotten HUNDREDS
| of flats - and I always carry 2 tubes with me (yes, I want to go
| tubeless, just havent done so yet) - getting tubes off amazon is
| ideal. Having to have to drive very far to go buy a tube is a
| non-starter
|
| Local bike shops currently have shitty inventories because of the
| supply shortage from china - and to have to again drive to the
| bike shop to find out that their inventory is low, that the
| lowest end bike is $5,000 and they want to sell every garment for
| >$50 with stupid logos and printing all over them to show that
| you, the customer-turned-billboard are "serious about your
| biking"
|
| -- Having to stand near too many weekend-road-warriors who really
| don't need anything but want to instead show you how much money
| they threw into their entire kit....
|
| -- Having to deal with upsell in certain cases
|
| -- Having to get blank stares with questions about anything
| outside of what the store actually sells and too many answers of
| "gee, I don't know"
|
| ---
|
| Yeah, While I hate Amazon's monopoly as much as everyone -- this
| does NOT make all local bike shops even.
|
| Yes, I have met some awesome ones - not not enough to where every
| bike shop nearest me is a good one in every single city I have
| loved in all over the greater bay area all the way up to Tahoe
| City...
| philistine wrote:
| This is fascinating and a great description to the threats facing
| Amazon. When you cede responsibility to Amazon that your business
| requires to perform adequately (in this case it seems to be the
| ability to match a bike to its compatible parts) than that is a
| risk for Amazon to lose its place as the internet's mall if it
| cannot offer a way to stay relevant. If zero bike parts are
| available on Amazon today it might become bigger and bigger
| markets tomorrow, that a company like Shopify is better aligned
| to serve.
| scoofy wrote:
| If I recall correctly, Specialized Bikes pulled all their
| products from Amazon a while ago, pointing to the failing local
| bike shops eventually hurting the bike business for everyone.
|
| Bicycles are not toys. They are vehicles that need maintenance.
| You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd,
| but the vast majority of cyclists are dependent on local bike
| shops to sustain the cycling community.
|
| The bicycle/parts manufacturers need a large cycling community to
| sell products to. The large cycling community will have novice
| and intermediate cyclists that will abandon cycling if their
| bikes break down. The novice and intermediate cyclist need local
| bike shops to do maintenance on their bikes at affordable rates.
| The local bike shops need a revenue stream beyond labor for
| maintenance to be affordable. Thus, the major bicycle
| manufacturers need to give a oligopoly status to the local bike
| shops in order to keep their user base large.
|
| As a life long cyclist, I've seen the industry grow and wane, and
| throughout it all, I've seen the vast majority of people think
| bicycles are some type of sports-equipment. Decisions like this
| are one of only a few business models that I can see sustaining
| the community. I'm actually surprised and optimistic to see the
| major manufacturer Trek start building their own brick and mortar
| shops in certain major cities, though I'd prefer to see this
| happen through a major cooperative between the various brands. If
| you care about making cycling a serious, sustainable transit
| alternative, we need to maintain the entire ecosystem of
| ridership, which means the race to the bottom on amazon must be
| stopped.
| williamtwild wrote:
| "Bicycles are not toys. "
|
| Yes and no. I think what most people think of when they think
| bicycle is the throw away kind that you buy at you local big
| box retailer or sporting goods store. These are toys in the
| sense the they were likely meant for casual recreation and at
| most might get a tire patched or some other simple repair.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| My kids all ride former-toy bicycles that I've had for a song
| from FB Marketplace and nursed back to health.
|
| But yeah, I think the GP is speaking aspirationally. We need
| to _get to a place where_ bikes are considered infrastructure
| the way a vehicle is, that everyone has one, and has a
| selection of shops around them to service it, same as
| everyone currently has lots of garages, dealers, and gas
| stations around to meet the needs of their automobile.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If bikes get to that point, that means buying parts online
| to me. Making it hard to get parts is not generally
| supportive of cycling IMO.
|
| I buy almost all of my parts to service our cars online.
| Amazon, RockAuto, and brand-specific parts suppliers
| (PeachParts, HandA/Bernardi, Ricambi, etc.) I can recall
| going to a physical dealer 3 times in the last 20 years and
| each time it was for a "I need it exactly this afternoon
| and I'm willing to pay for it in dollars and
| inconvenience".
| dublinben wrote:
| The point is that if you're performing your own service
| of your car, you're already more of an enthusiast than
| your bicycling counterpart. Cycling for transportation
| needs to work for the mainstream, buy it from a dealer on
| installment, take it to the shop for routine maintenance,
| treat it as an appliance consumer. Enthusiasts will
| always find a way in spite of bad infrastructure.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Maybe to you it's a more convenient experience, but not
| everyone has the same approach to shopping. Some are
| happy to receive advice for specific products (or to have
| someone tell them what quality level they're going for),
| while others are simply happy to be able to have a human
| interaction at the counter (i'm in both categories).
|
| Moreover, i'm not convinced online shopping is better for
| society at large. From an ecological perspective, from an
| anti-monopoly perspective..
| bradlys wrote:
| Ecological perspective, it's better than having a single
| person driving a significant distance to a specific
| destination. (On top of the maintenance of that
| destination) Whereas - delivery wise... you're like a few
| hundred extra feet of driving maybe. (Assuming you live
| in a city/decently-sized suburb)
|
| Packaging is the only issue that needs to be solved more
| efficiently but there are potential solutions to that.
| r00fus wrote:
| Not everyone is capable of handling the labor portion of
| the (labor + parts) equation of servicing a bike (not to
| mention a fleet of bikes for family).
|
| I certainly can only handle the basics and the family
| rides a decent amount of miles/wk.
|
| I buy local - many times it's even cheaper than Amazon -
| and I live in an expensive metro.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Presumably the people who can't (or won't) do the labor
| are _already_ buying parts from their shop though, right?
|
| I doubt many people are buying parts on Amazon (or
| previously from Nashbar) and asking a bike shop to
| install them.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| I think the point is to enlarge the community. More local
| bike shops and services will lead to more riders, firstly
| because they'll notice it as an option whereas many
| wouldn't have before and secondly because the more there
| are the closer they'll be to anyone's home or workplace,
| thus more convenient.
| Rapzid wrote:
| I think of my road bike and the mountain bikes I owned when I
| did that.. So toys(sports equipment).
|
| But yeah, the majority of the US population probably thinks
| recreational bikes for their kids and maybe the ones they own
| to ride with their kids.. Also toys.
| rapind wrote:
| > I'm actually surprised and optimistic to see the major
| manufacturer Trek start building their own brick and mortar
| shops in certain major cities
|
| I wouldn't be too optimistic. We have one in Toronto. When I
| brought in my trek that I bought from them to fix it, it cost a
| fortune and they didn't actually fix it properly.
|
| Similar to servicing your car at the dealer. It's super
| expensive. Difference being the quality of work is questionable
| (no doubt varies quite a bit).
|
| Lesson: learn to fix your own bike or settle for crappy big box
| bikes instead.
| JCharante wrote:
| Non-chain shops might be better. I'm learning to service my
| own bike because the cost of labor and overhead is really
| high in the US compared to where I got hooked on road cycling
| (Vietnam).
| secondcoming wrote:
| I have a lot of tools that I got so I could service my bike.
| Now, the industry has moved on with various sizing standards
| and these tools will be useless when I get a new bike.
| scoofy wrote:
| I would actually write to trek about that. The shop here in
| SF seems pretty solid, but I don't currently have a Trek
| bike, so I might be wrong. I agree with you on the analogy,
| but I'm pushing for the apple-store parallel. No serious
| computer nerd would use an apple-store as a serious place to
| maintenance their laptop, but novice to intermediate computer
| users would, even if they have to go back a few times.
| sonthonax wrote:
| > You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd
|
| I'm finding this to less true these days. As bikes become more
| 'integrated' with components specific to the model they're
| becoming harder to fix. It's particularly bad with aero bikes
| that have aero handlebars, weird stems and internal routing.
|
| Even if you're a bike nerd, what you know won't really apply on
| another bike anymore.
| hinkley wrote:
| Even if you can do routine maintenance - and I can't recommend
| learning basic maintenance highly enough - sooner or later your
| bike will get damaged by a wreck, falling over, getting backed
| into, or ending up in way too much water for too long. You want
| a pro who can tell you fix or replace.
|
| And you don't want to deal with counterfeit items either.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| I think you're reading too much into this. Specialized stopped
| selling bikes on Amazon for the same reason Apple (as well as
| other high profile brands mentioned in the article like Nike,
| etc.) doesn't use Amazon as the primary retailer of their
| products - because it's an unnecessary middleman. Specialized
| is enough of a big, premium brand name that they can drive
| people to their own online shop directly. Online/DTC sales is
| inevitable in the bicycle industry, just like it has been for
| most other consumer products in the past decade, and prior to
| the pandemic Specialized had made a huge push into online sales
| to compete with the likes of Canyon (which was a bike company
| founded to take advantage of exactly this market gap which for
| whatever reasons the traditional brands were slow to get into).
|
| The online model is also amazing for consumers as well (not to
| mention small indie bike manufacturers). Instead of choosing
| between maybe 2-5 bikes that might match my basic preferences
| and be in stock at my local bike shop, I have dozens if not
| hundreds of models to choose from made by any manufacturer
| around the world.
|
| Sure, shops that do bike maintenance are important, but none of
| what you're saying here explains why any special interventions
| are needed for them. Won't the demand of more people using
| bicycles, and needing them fixed, be enough to keep these
| maintenance businesses healthy? I think the industry as a whole
| is much better off focusing on getting bikes to more people,
| and then improving cycling infrastructure to make it safer and
| more accessible to average people in everyday situations. The
| number of bike mechanics available is certainly not a major
| bottleneck that is keeping anybody from taking up cycling
| today.
| _Wintermute wrote:
| Funny that Specialized are worried about local bike shops given
| their track record. Want to stock Specialized bikes? They'll
| try and strong-arm you to dedicate the majority of your floor-
| space to selling other Specialized components, removing options
| for the existing customers of the shop.
|
| Named your small bike shop after a famous bicycle race and
| French town (roubaix)? Specialized will try and sue you because
| they have a model of bike with the same name (and don't even
| own the trademark). https://capovelo.com/Specialized-
| Threatening-to-Sue-Bike-Sho...
| scoofy wrote:
| I mean, the idea that Specialized isn't moving toward the
| apple store-style model that Trek seems to be moving toward
| is honestly an act of good will. Dumb lawsuits aside,
| specialized is one of the best brands out there, and they
| absolutely have the power to ask for concessions. They're
| running a business selling absurdly high-end bikes. They're
| not bikesdirect selling baseline products.
| _Wintermute wrote:
| Specialized have had their own "concept stores" for years
| now, Trek are merely copying that idea.
|
| As someone who has worked in multiple bike shops, and also
| broken their own Specialized bike and had to deal with
| their warranty department, I'm never giving them any of my
| money again.
| scoofy wrote:
| Huh... so it seems. It appears that they only really
| exist in the UK, which is odd seeing as Specialized is
| based in the Bay Area. I see there are two locations in
| the Los Angeles area.
| klyrs wrote:
| Try to steal a sandwich from a squirrel. It isn't going to
| bite you out of concern for how you'll treat the sandwich...
| namdnay wrote:
| > The novice and intermediate cyclist need local bike shops to
| do maintenance on their bikes at affordable rates. The local
| bike shops need a revenue stream beyond labor for maintenance
| to be affordable.
|
| I don't agree with this reasoning. Why wouldn't maintenance be
| priced at the true rate? In what way is it better for consumers
| to overpay for their equipment in order to underpay for
| maintenance?
| ljf wrote:
| I didn't read it to say that, just that it is very hard to be
| a mechanic only shop - they also need to sell something else
| to be a profitable business.
|
| In London there a few mechanics/coffee shops that stayed
| profitable that way.
|
| If more people cycled I'm sure you would see more 'just
| mechanics' but in most places they can't afford to be that.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| An acquaintance of mine tried to do the cafe/sales/repair
| thing [1]; he went more high end on all three, selling
| fancy drinks, pricey Dutch cargo bikes, etc. It didn't work
| out. I think they lasted ~3 years, though it was clear by
| the end that the writing was on the wall.
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/berlinbikecafe
| southerntofu wrote:
| > he went more high end on all three
|
| Maybe that was the problem there?
| JCharante wrote:
| Yeah high-end cafe seems like a tough sell. A cheap cafe
| to go to during group rides sounds great for having
| people learn about your high end service shop.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I feel like high end bike service in general is a tough
| sell unless you have a huge local club-ride community of
| people whose time is extremely valuable.
|
| I know someone who operated a Velofix van for a few
| years, and I used it a few times, but the minimum cost
| was basically $100+. For that much coin, I would just
| walk my bike home or take it on the bus. Particularly if
| it was something like a flat tire where I know I can fix
| it myself at home for a few dollars.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Possibly, but it was also not a large storefront, and
| it's been replaced by a boutique donut shop. It's down
| the street from a creperie, a wine bar, and some other
| bistro thing. There used to be a health food store on
| this block.
|
| Basically just saying that some combination of floor
| space, rent and other fixed costs, etc etc led to
| pursuing a higher-end business model and it didn't work
| out. There may be lots of reasons for that, but one of
| the principles here is that you need to be able to bike
| to your bike store-- it's not fulfilling its purpose if
| it's in a power center plaza that you need to drive to.
| jandrese wrote:
| Bikes are pretty low maintenance, the repairs are usually
| fairly simple, and the parts are cheap. It's hard to make
| margins on a low price low volume service. If a bike is
| really damaged it usually makes more sense to just replace
| it wholesale.
|
| If e-bikes take off they could help. There are a lot more
| moving parts to break and especially electrical issues to
| track down. Electrical issues are real moneymakers in
| diagnostic fees on cars.
| scoofy wrote:
| The reason is that the price elasticity of demand for bikes,
| outside of, say, the netherlands, is extremely elastic. Your
| counter-argument presumes that cycling can't just fail, that
| the prices are inelastic enough to support mechanic-only
| shops.
|
| I truly believe that cycling, as an activity, can just fail
| and cease to exist. It _has_ ceased to exist in many areas in
| America. Many, many, many novice cyclists would rather
| abandon cycling than pay a large premium on bicycle
| maintenance. Perhaps there is a different business model that
| would work, but I see the large manufacturers as having in
| interest in creating an environment where maintenance service
| can be delivered at-cost.
| hinkley wrote:
| The mechanics end up helping pay for the building and profit
| margin, same as everything else in the shop. There's a price
| point where you can keep your mechanics running at 90% every
| day, and that may or may not pay for the building.
| notriddle wrote:
| It's not that simple. If you own a brick-and-mortar store of
| any kind, there are a lot of costs other than labor and
| parts, like the building itself, marketing, security, and
| attending the desk or phone. A lot of these costs won't go
| down if the store stops selling new bikes; they're flat, or
| there's some minimum amount that you can possibly buy.
| jandrese wrote:
| I have a local bike shop that I would like to support, but
| they stock only the cheapest no-name parts and charge way
| more than the premium parts on Amazon.
|
| I went to get a replacement inner tube--nothing special, just
| a 26x1.95 with a Schrader valve--and all they had was some
| Chinese brand (Hilong or something like that?) for $35. I
| want to support local businesses, but come on. The only thing
| they offered over Amazon is that they would install it for
| you for a modest $50 in labor.
|
| They also basically don't stock anything under $800 if you
| are looking to buy a bike, and even those are Giant brand
| mountain bikes with trash tier hardware. I went looking for
| something I could commute to work on every day and they were
| trying to sell so much fragile carbon fiber stuff that was
| miles outside of my budget range. I don't need to shave
| 5/10ths off of my commute, I want low maintenance, comfort,
| and ruggedness. Apparently that's totally uncool and biking
| is all about ultralight and ultrahard--feel every crack in
| the pavement through the hard plastic saddle! I wasn't
| impressed with the line about "it's more comfortable because
| you use less energy to get there".
| JCharante wrote:
| It sounds like a local bike shop isn't really what you're
| looking for. Under $800 a Decathlon/triban road bike is
| pretty decent.
|
| There are commuter bikes for $100 but it's just not worth
| servicing them because telling someone it'll be 40% of the
| original bike price in labor + parts to fix something not
| major is hard for them to accept.
|
| > low maintenance, comfort, and ruggedness. Apparently
| that's totally uncool and biking is all about ultralight
| and ultrahard--feel every crack in the pavement through the
| hard plastic saddle!
|
| Carbon is more comfortable by reducing the vibrations that
| you'll feel compared to aluminum.
|
| The reason why they stock shitty parts is because they
| appear to service really cheap bikes and for people who buy
| cheap bikes, that's what they want. I know many shops who
| wouldn't service cheap bikes and I know many shops where
| they would but I wouldn't trust them with my more expensive
| Trek road bike. So it's strange that they also stock carbon
| frames.
| maxerickson wrote:
| They insinuate the shop marks the price of the tube up
| ~10x and charges $100+ an hour for simple labor.
|
| You don't seem to respond to those things.
| ShroudedNight wrote:
| > it's more comfortable because you use less energy to get
| there
|
| I wonder if these people are internally consistent enough
| to eschew the use of ramps or pulleys.
| asdff wrote:
| The next thing the industry has to do is spend some of this
| unprecedented COVID profit on lobbying for more bike lanes. My
| word. What's the point of a bike if it feels too dangerous
| taking it out on the roads sharing lanes with these
| reckless/distracted/intoxicated drivers? The auto industry
| lobbied for highways. It's time for the bike industry to play
| ball and do the same.
| scoofy wrote:
| Absolutely.
| chapium wrote:
| Bike lanes, as implemented in the US are a gift to cars and
| are down right dangerous. They communicate to drivers that
| bikes are designated to a lane when they are not. This is the
| style of lane than runs along the left side of the road with
| parking on the outside. They are designed with minimal buffer
| space (if any) and are right in the doorzone. What use is a
| bikelane that can be doored? Also, if a driver wants to make
| a right-hand turn, they must turn through a bikelane that is
| in a straight line direction. How does that make sense? We
| don't put our turn lanes for cars to cut across straight
| lanes.
|
| Bikelanes also are mostly just there (in practice) for
| rideshare services and delivery services to drop off goods.
| This isn't necessarily a bad thing, given the problems with
| right turns and doorings mentioned earlier. It is problematic
| in name however, but because new cyclists treat them as
| actual bike lanes and are just gambling with the probability
| of eventionally getting hit.
|
| We should have more bike infrastructure, but putting money
| into this garbage is a mistake.
| itsbrass wrote:
| This echoes a lot of my feelings about bike lanes, do you
| have any references to traffic studies or the like showing
| that these kinds of lanes are, indeed, more dangerous?
|
| I'd be especially curious to know what the good
| alternatives are.
|
| IIRC physical dividers like reflector poles actually do
| make bike lanes safer, and sharrows are mixed on whether or
| not they make lanes more effective.
| scoofy wrote:
| >I'd be especially curious to know what the good
| alternatives are.
|
| Open Streets: https://openstreetsproject.org/
| TomVDB wrote:
| I've noticed in various places in the Bay Area that new and
| improved bike lanes are being added.
|
| A good example is a Bubb Rd, the part north of McClellan, in
| Cupertino (which has a bunch of Apple offices): much improved
| signalization and there's now a bumper divider between the
| car and bike lane, making it very safe.
|
| They also added much improved commuter bus access islands.
|
| This is just one example. There are others. I don't know if
| it's because of COVID or because these things were already
| planned, but the lack of usual commuter and school traffic
| definitely made it easier to do the work.
| Swizec wrote:
| > if it feels too dangerous taking it out on the roads
| sharing lanes with these reckless/distracted/intoxicated
| drivers
|
| As a motorcyclist and former electric skateboard rider,
| welcome! Everyone is trying to kill you and it's always your
| fault.
|
| Cemeteries are full of people who had right of way.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Am a current cyclist and eskate rider, and I also bike on
| (not busy) roads with my young kids. Nothing I hate more
| than being honked- or yelled-at to "just go" when I have
| the right of way but am exercising an abundance of caution
| to make absolutely certain I'm not about to get ploughed by
| a car which may or may not come to a stop.
| deathanatos wrote:
| Yeah, an awful lot of drivers seem to forget that1 I have
| the _right_ to the entire lane, even as a cyclist. If you
| don 't like it, you can use the other lane, if there is
| one, to go around me. If there isn't -- tough! Am if I
| _am_ occupying the entire lane, there is almost certainly
| a _reason_ for it -- like an upcoming left or because
| there isn 't sufficient room for you to pass. Because if
| there weren't, fighting with a car is not high on my list
| of priorities: I'd much rather scootch over, give you
| room to get by so you can speed of into the sunset and I
| can have an empty road to myself.
|
| 1IANAL; in the jurisdiction I'm in, but my understanding
| is that this is common
| nicoburns wrote:
| That's definitely the law here in the UK, although FWIW
| most of the time I don't feel the need to occupy the
| whole lane. Cars generally pass _reasonably_ safely here,
| plus there generally isn 't another lane on the kind of
| road I'd be cycling on.
| ian-g wrote:
| Hilariously, sometimes I feel most comfortable on a bike in
| the road when I'm being a slight bit unsafe.
|
| If I keep to the edge of the lane folks pass by me really
| close. If I'm going back and forth a bit and taking a whole
| lane up, cars give me the entire lane. It's wonderful
| walshemj wrote:
| Exactly don't ride in the Gutter and also don't under
| take stopped traffic aggressively
| manachar wrote:
| Not just bike lanes, but urban/suburban planning based on
| pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
|
| Watching subdivisions going in with utterly unfriendly
| approaches to people who want to get around with anything but
| a car is horrific to me.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| You are right that we need local bike shops but I don't think
| we need more major chain shops. Admittedly a chain shop is
| better than NO shop at all if that's what you're dealing with
| in your area. In Philly, the Performance bike shop went out of
| business while many of the smaller independent shops have
| survived.
|
| The good news is that bicycle fashion has tended towards more
| "city bikes" in the last decade or so. These have fewer frills
| and thus are simpler (== more durable) and also more
| maintainable by someone who is willing to learn the basics. The
| "basics" would be lube, fixing flats, brake maintenance and
| simple shifter adjustments. I think that's better than the
| earlier trends of "mountain bikes" with too many parts and
| stuff that's too hard to adjust for people without enough
| tools.
| ian-g wrote:
| God, that maintenance thing is really a huge factor.
|
| I used to be a bike tech. Somebody ordering a $5000 mountain
| bike might take a full day to put together. But if you gave
| me $5000 in cruiser bikes, I could have them all put together
| well and get some maintenance done. I really loathe how
| cruisers look, but goddamn they're some of the sturdiest
| pieces of junk I've ever worked on
| mtnGoat wrote:
| one of the bike stores in my town was bought by trek, now you
| can only buy expensive parts there. they dont sell anything
| low end or for beginners. the cheapest kids bike they sell
| was $200, lowest priced helmet was $80.
| scoofy wrote:
| Look, I mean, I totally agree with you, but we're living in
| this system, and I'm terrified of the what happened to the
| bookstore industry happening to the local bike shop industry.
|
| You look at the towns that still have quality book stores.
| You have a few cities that have thriving bookstores: Boston
| (likely because of students) and SF (likely because of
| cultural nostalgia and real estate laws, but these are now
| failing). You then have the consolidation model, where cities
| have one good bookstore that can compete against amazon: NYC
| (The Strand), Austin (Bookpeople), Portland (Powell's).
|
| My point is that i would rather the cities follow this
| consolidation model than fail. You have one, trusted brand
| within the town, whose entire business model is built on
| quality and trust, because all parties know there's a cheaper
| alternative. This is where performance bikes failed, as they
| sacrificed quality service for price competitiveness. I was
| actively advising my friends to avoid their mechanics like
| the plague. The Trek shop seems to be moving in the other
| direction, as a boutique, with reasonably trusted service, so
| long as your using their products and, like apple, the added
| cost premium they charge.
|
| This is not idealism, this is a practical model based on what
| is honestly a sense of fatalism. The automobile system we
| have is a path-dependent clusterfuck, and we have to be, not
| just willing, but be happy to take less than ideal outcomes
| to fight for real alternatives.
| dheera wrote:
| Here's the other side of the story.
|
| For a long time I was a student (yes, I did a PhD). I didn't
| have the cash for local bike shops.
|
| Buying and supporting local is a luxury for the rich. I could
| not afford the $600 bikes they were selling. I bought $150 used
| bikes on Craigslist and repaired them myself. And no, not with
| parts from the bike shop. I could get the same parts at half
| price online, including from Amazon. Usually I could tune up a
| $150 bike for another $25 in parts and that's a lot cheaper
| than $600.
|
| If local bike shops want my business, and pretty much the
| business of students in general, they need to get with the beat
| and be cheaper than Amazon.
|
| Oh btw -- last week I changed my bike pedals for one that I got
| on Amazon for $20. I have never seen a bike shop sell such good
| pedals at this price point. I have never even seen a bike shop
| sell this brand ("ROCKBROS"). They usually sell some super
| expensive brand like Shimano only. They also seem to have
| politics against selling competing brands sometimes, and Amazon
| has none of that bullcrap, you see all the brands and you buy
| the best.
| zwieback wrote:
| Agreed. Bike shop business models are problematic and it's
| worth shopping around. My local shops sell a lot of stuff at
| reasonable prices and we have 4 shops in walking distance of
| each other so there's some competition but at times it feels
| like being ripped off. And it feels worse being ripped off by
| your neighbor somehow. When that happens I don't feel bad
| about getting stuff from nashbar or similar.
|
| Pedals are a good example, ridiculously overpriced at the
| shops. Luckily we have a non-profit called "The Bike
| Collective" that strips donated bikes and sells parts super
| cheap, they also help with repairs.
| scoofy wrote:
| >Buying and supporting local is a luxury for the rich.
|
| This is extremely myopic. The entire point of cycling-as-
| transit, is that, as an investment, it's _by far_ the most
| inexpensive alternative. If you 're under the assumption that
| you'll already have a car, or free access to transit, or live
| on campus, then I see your argument. However, cycling _as an
| alternative to these things_ is wildly, wildly inexpensive,
| even factoring in bikes that cost thousands of dollars.
|
| The cost of luxuriously maintaining a bicycle is about
| $100-$200 annually. The cost of maintaining an automobile is
| about $8000 annually, it's just that the costs are broken up
| into micropayments on things like fuel or hiding in the
| depreciation.
| dheera wrote:
| First of all I didn't own a car. You're right that it's
| several thousand dollars annually and that's why I didn't
| own a car.
|
| > The cost of luxuriously maintaining a bicycle is about
| $100-$200 annually
|
| That's if you fix it yourself. I spent <$100/year on
| maintaining my bike.
|
| Changing brake pads at a bike shop cost upwards of $60.
| Wheel truing, probably >$200. Attempting to buy brake pads
| and refusing brake pad changing service usually involved a
| stupid long conversation with them to convince them you
| didn't need service, and they would price gouge you on the
| brake pads. With Amazon it cost me a grand total of $8 for
| the new pads, shipping included, and not having to convince
| anyone that I'm competent at fixing my own bicycle.
|
| I once had a pedal stuck in my crank and just needed a
| longer wrench with more leverage to get it out. Damn bike
| shop wouldn't sell me the wrench. They wanted to do it
| themselves and charged me fucking $40 for TWO MINUTES of
| work. WTF. Needless to say I never visited that shop again.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Local bike shops aren't exactly rolling in dough. If you
| ask your local car mechanic how much they'd charge to
| remove a stuck bolt you'll also encounter a labor minimum
| that'll be a lot more than $40.
| dheera wrote:
| Sure, but that's not really my problem. I'm not rolling
| in dough either, and that's why I don't usually use local
| bike shops.
|
| If they want my business, they need to match what I can
| afford _somehow_.
| scoofy wrote:
| Again... I don't care about how much you, or I, spend on
| bikes. I'm a nerd, I do most of the work myself. You seem
| like that too.
|
| I'm talking about cost _in relation to alternatives_. If
| the cost in relation to alternatives is low, then you can
| easily afford luxurious maintenance, as you 'd be
| spending the same money, and lots more, paying for any
| alternative.
| dheera wrote:
| Well yes, if the alternatives are viable.
|
| For someone on grad student income, owning a car is
| largely not viable, it's not even an alternative that is
| remotely in sight.
| JCharante wrote:
| The problem is that there's two types of people who ride
| bikes.
|
| Commuters who want to spend less than $200 on just something
| to get them moving, parents riding with their kids are also
| here.
|
| Cyclists who spent 10-20-40 hours per week on a bike. For a
| hobby that you spend 60hr/mo on it's reasonable to spend
| $1300 on an entry level road bike and much more as you
| progress. Especially because it's good for your health.
|
| Obviously there's money to be made with cyclists, but
| commuters would be so cheap and budget concerned that there's
| no money to be made from it.
|
| Amazon is perfect because you're not looking for quality. I
| use a rockbros sweat catcher for my indoor training bike
| setup and it's great because it's just fabric.
|
| You want LBS to stock $20 pedals? Who is going to buy them?
| What would the margins on that be? I wouldn't trust $20
| clipless pedals (because if they fail you will get
| hurt/injured) and if they're flat pedals then bmx people
| would buy flat, but they're going to be so heavy that it'll
| be bad performance wise. There's only broke students who
| would buy it, and at that point just get it from Amazon.
| walshemj wrote:
| I am looking at a bike for commuting and as this will be
| multimodal - that means a Brompton which is well over
| PS1200.
|
| Oh and trying to find one in stock is a nightmare in the UK
| most be even worse else where.
| dheera wrote:
| If you're looking for cheaper, look into Dahon bikes,
| they're decent value and much cheaper. Especially if you
| can get a used one that has been kept well, you can often
| get it for less than half of the MSRP.
| dheera wrote:
| So ...
|
| I spend a lot of time on a bike. I don't spend $1300 on
| bikes.
|
| There are people who want the latest carbon fiber blah blah
| just because they are using it for sport. I have no problem
| with them. But I have my current $200 Craigslist bike, it
| would have been $900 MSRP, but it rides fine, it's a little
| heavier than those carbon fiber things but so what? I get
| more exercise, and worry slightly less about theft, which
| buys me a LOT of freedom because I can just lock it up in
| downtown San Francisco and enjoy my day. If it gets stolen
| I just buy another bike, no biggie. If my landlord
| confiscates it, I just buy another bike, no biggie.*
|
| Yeah, I agree, it's reasonable to spend $1300. If you have
| $1300. But it's also okay to NOT want to spend $1300 and
| still want to take it up as a serious hobby. I for one am
| pretty happy with my $200 bike.
|
| I don't use clip pedals, I just use flat pedals, and these
| $20 aluminum flat pedals are nice and solid. I tried SPD
| clips before and hated that stuff. To each is own.
|
| I have done many long distance trips, and I _avoid_
| proprietary or hard-to-find components because it 's
| awesome that I can find replacement components in some
| random village in rural China or rural Myanmar or rural
| anywhere I go.
|
| *Saves me on rent anyway because apartments in my area with
| proper bike storage OR enough apartment sqftage to store
| bikes inside have rent rates higher than my current rent
| plus the cost of a new bike per month. It still saves me
| money to stay at my current cheap apartment, lock bike to
| the pool fence (because property manager refuses to install
| bike racks on the premises), get it confiscated every now
| and then, and keep buying new bikes.
| XnoiVeX wrote:
| For someone so value sensitive, what is keeping you in
| SFO inspite of the insanely high rents? That's money down
| the drain unless you can justify it.
| [deleted]
| jrd259 wrote:
| Kerson and his team asked buyers at every retailer who stocks PNW
| parts to remove them from their Amazon stores too, so that
| everyone involved could maximize their profits and not undercut
| each other.
|
| IANAL, but is this not collusion or price fixing?
| lardo wrote:
| This is pretty much how local bike shops work.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Aren't manufacturers (and branders) normally able to set the
| minimum advertised prices of their products, in addition to
| making suggestions (backed by "if you break the rules, we won't
| sell this to you any more") about how and where retailers can
| sell and advertise the product?
| lardo wrote:
| Do they actually make things or are they just selling branded
| white-label parts?
|
| https://www.ziprecruiter.com/c/PNW-Components-LLC/Jobs
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Their dropper posts are rebranded TranzX parts as far as I
| know, which is supposedly common:
| https://stravaigingmtb.com/2017/11/27/so-who-the-hell-made-t...
|
| I heard before that Trek does the same thing with their
| Bontrager posts.
| Matthias247 wrote:
| Define "make". Often companies are doing specifications and
| blueprints, but outsource the actual manufacturing to other
| companies. I think this would also apply to PNW, since their
| products (like the seatpost) are afaik not known to be just
| relabeled versions of other products.
| pizzaknife wrote:
| i prefer to work on my bicycle. This is both a privilege and a
| luxury and i recognize such. PNW components are wonderful. I shop
| LBS for tools and "need it today" parts. I do not find value in
| paying the majority of bike mechanics (ive been scraping my shins
| religiously for 32yrs and part of what gives me confidence in
| jumping them tens of feet into the arm at the ripe age of
| midlife). I do, however, find value in shop talk and buying the
| right tools / components (even if special ordered through the
| shops). Its a mixed bag of bolts
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Personally I find local bike and book shops to be excellent
| alternatives to Amazon. For tech stuff I go to Best Buy where
| possible (not exactly a local shop, but at least it's still
| competition for Amazon). Nice to see the suppliers themselves
| pull out of Amazon.
| mym1990 wrote:
| As an additional benefit, local bike shops and book shops also
| usually have some pretty cool people working there!
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I went to a manufacturer's website recently to buy something
| direct (cut out the middle man, better for everyone, yay!) The
| price was double that on Amazon. And they charged shipping. I
| get that bringing wearhousing in house has to cost more money,
| but it was just strange to see that dramatic a discount.
| jonahhorowitz wrote:
| Best Buy is great for electronics. They have control over their
| supply chain and you don't have to deal with counterfeits.
| [deleted]
| Loic wrote:
| Ortlieb[0], the very appreciated maker of bicycle bags, is not
| selling over Amazon. They are selling online, but your
| order/payment is sent directly to a local shop delivering to you
| (in Germany). I really like it.
|
| Some years ago, Amazon was pushing "Ortlieb bag" adverts on
| Google to redirect to Amazon where the bags were not to be found
| and was sued. Amazon lost[1].
|
| [0]: https://www.ortlieb.com
|
| [1]: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/ortlieb-gegen-
| am...
| Symbiote wrote:
| I was very impressed with Ortlieb when I was able to buy a
| replacement part, for about EUR3, for a 15 year old bag.
|
| I will be a lifelong customer, but the bags are so durable I
| might never need another for myself.
| progbits wrote:
| Similarly Peak Design (a well respected brand of quality camera
| gear including backpacks) is not selling on Amazon. See recent
| HN thread [0] about Amazon making a cheap knock-off of their
| product.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26338525
| FrameworkFred wrote:
| I suspect this is a trend that'll continue as market buyers and
| sellers realize Amazon is a poor fit for certain of their
| activities.
|
| I already avoid Amazon as a consumer when the brand, quality, or
| delivery date really counts.
|
| But I also avoid Lowes when I'm buying appliances for tenant
| properties because they can't be relied upon to call before they
| deliver. And I don't buy from Harbor Freight Tools when equipment
| failure might be fatal because some things I've bought there
| haven't survived their first use.
|
| But those places have saved me a ton of money over the years when
| their model has worked to my benefit, just like Amazon has made a
| vast improvement in certain areas of my life.
|
| I suspect companies like PNC are coming to similar realizations
| about Amazon as they see that their returns (or the implications
| on their reputations, or their confidence in continued sales)
| paint a picture that's less attractive than pursuing
| alternatives.
| mtnGoat wrote:
| fact of the matter is... if you are a cyclist, amazon is
| definitely not the place to look for bike parts. sadly, all the
| SEO spammers only advertise amazon affiliate links so you'd think
| amazon sells decent bike parts, but you'd be wrong. IMHO google
| should ban any website heavily linking to amazon affiliate
| program.
| IncRnd wrote:
| From the article: "PNW wasn't the only business growing tired of
| Amazon. Kerson and his team asked buyers at every retailer who
| stocks PNW parts to remove them from their Amazon stores too, so
| that everyone involved could maximize their profits and not
| undercut each other." ... "We set up these calls and we were not
| expecting them to go very well," says Marshall, "As soon as we
| started talking about it the buyers were really excited."
|
| From the FTC: "Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, or
| inferred from conduct) among competitors that raises, lowers, or
| stabilizes prices or competitive terms ... Price fixing relates
| not only to prices, but also to other terms that affect prices to
| consumers, such as shipping fees, warranties, discount programs,
| or financing rates. Antitrust scrutiny may occur when competitors
| discuss the following topics: ..., Capacity, Identity of
| customers, ... Defendants may not justify their behavior by
| arguing that the prices were reasonable to consumers, were
| necessary to avoid cut-throat competition, or stimulated
| competition." [1]
|
| Is there a lawer who can say if that was price fixing?
|
| [1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-
| guidance/guide-a...
| dstaley wrote:
| IANAL, but I think this would qualify as a resale price
| maintenance agreement[1], which is legal at a federal level and
| in most (but not all!) states. I guess it really depends on
| what exactly "not undercut each other" entailed.
|
| [1]
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/resale_price_maintenance_agr...
| [deleted]
| r00fus wrote:
| Is avoiding a major adversary/predatory channel considered
| price-fixing?
| IncRnd wrote:
| It wasn't just avoidance of a channel. The company got on a
| call and convinced all their retail outlets to maximize their
| prices and minimize their costs (in the same way) while not
| competing against each other.
| Wohlf wrote:
| Yes, if the effect/methods is the same.
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