Taking over the bike shop...

[Andy in Germany]

Ooh! You've gone to bold..... I must be in trouble

I agree with what you say and there are a lot of issues to consider other than just pure economics.

I'm just proposing an alternative and I seem to be in a minority of one
The last tube I bought (Spain) was €5+ in Decathlon. Replacing two on a €50 bike is a huge element of the cost. Even one is 10% of the selling price.

There are a lot of spinning plates in the air at the moment and I'm sure there are limits to what can be taken on board. But with a new team of clients and the right processes in place it's an idea that could be revisited successfully.

Don't forget that if you repair a tyre with a patch, you pay for a patch; if I repair the tyre I have to charge for my time as well, which comes at more than the cost of an inner tube.

 

[Andy in Germany]

@HobbesOnTour,​

I'm not against repairing the innertubes, but trying to take into consideration that the clients are not the end user. And that "problems/issues" that they might have are also being dealt with at the same time as trying to get the bike shop up, running, and returning a profit. And to be fair to Andy In Germany, he's never actually said what these are(They fall outside this thread, and are confidential). I might even be over cautious in this, or thinking there's a problem that doesn't exist. But if it does, minimize any chance of that happening in the workplace.​

​

Everything has gone to bold, and won't change.

This is also true, and it's a constant tension, but it's also a great opportunity to help people realise they can achieve far more than they believed.

Everything has gone to bold, and won't change.

Oh, for goodness sakes, have you gone and broken the internet?

 

[Andy in Germany]

I think you may be overthinking
It's a UK cycling forum - unless you've told anyone over there the chances of a doxxing are slim.
If it helps you feel better, ask a Mod to move the thread to Personal Matters - only viewable by members.

I usually am; another example of my tendency to be overcautious.

OK.
But the others? Can you ignore them?
Do you want suggestions to deal with them?

Anyone not in the management can't change anything, so I'll listen and then decide if I should act on their advice.

Spending is only one side of the equation. Earning is the other.
To be honest, the refusal to buy a dustpan and brush in the time before a health & safety inspection confuses me. Panic? Someone out of their depth?

More someone who knows where they can find a spare one and the authority to give it to me. I'd have appreciated if they'd said that though. I'm aware everyone is under a lot of pressure as we seem to have been randomly selected by several unrelated organisations for an audit at the same time; it's pure coincidence but it's hard on the layer of management above me and the boss.

In the interests of balance the same person was publicly very positive about my work with my client today; I think a lot depends on how harassed they're feeling.

n fairness, a chain or cassette isn't so much a time thing as a distance thing. Also riding conditions and maintenance.
In any case, this seems to be different from the standard before.

That's the trouble; it's a "piece of string" question because I don't know how far people will ride. My instinct (correct or not) is to "over engineer"

Andy, other things that may have a bearing.....
Where do you buy your parts? Are you getting dealer prices or paying retail? Are there shipping costs? Is ther VAT involved?
Can you source cheaper parts?
Can you sell used parts?
I suggested before an artistic use for old components, chains etc. Did you ever consider it? Not for your department but another. Money for nothing, really.

We buy wholesale and I'm including the retail price in the bike price tag; this may change. We also sell used parts and one of my ongoing projects is building and maintaining a price list for used and new parts.

I have an arrangement with my hideously capable and creative colleague in charge of the integration workshop that we'll deliver any parts he wants to make artistic things from. Unfortunately he has reported that most of his current clients are women and uninterested in anything that gets their hands dirty (that's an observation, not a criticism).

If I was you I'd make full use of the focus on tidying and organising for now. Either approach (or wait for the next comment) and ask for a meeting to clarify the costs and spending.

That's what I'm doing, with vigour before someone tells me to stop again; my client is sorting things into boxes and labelling them. She's taking a load off my mind in doing this and I've made sure she knows how much I appreciate it.

Incidentally we've also decimated the Wheel Breeding Colony; this means I now know what I've got so I can find you some wheels if/when you come by in Spring...

 

[Andy in Germany]

You inherited the previous mechanics system and collection. You're now in the process of sorting those out. These may not have had as much ordering done, but did lead to the situation you found yourself in. Especially when it came to parts removed from bikes, bottom brackets were removed and "neatly" stored in a box. Most have now gone because they weren't kept together as they were taken off.

This is also a factor, although I don't tend to say anything about the previous mechanic directly as it could sound like I'm making excuses. I have made it clear that a lot of time is wasted searching for stuff though. I've also made it clear that we will have to order less stuff because my other client who takes bikes apart, is doing a grand job of sorting bits out: we've gone from having to search for one pair of shifters to having boxes full of them. Soon we'll have to start sorting phase 2, where we subdivide shifters by speed, for example, which wasn't on the distant horizon a few months ago.

I also will have a school student on work experience soon, and I intend to put him to work on things like measuring and sorting the usable BB's. I'm quite looking forward to that as they are "my" sort of person and I will be able to do some training and development with someone again; fixing bikes is great; doing it and helping people and getting paid for it is a dream come true; how did this just happen?

Not everyone leaves a written review, and word of mouth is still stronger than social media. All you need is one bad word of mouth "review" over something bought and your work could all be undone in an instant.

This, cubed: in Germany families stay more local and communities are stronger, more interlinked. We don't live in a dormitory town and word travels fast. The previous mechanic was well know in the "alternative" community but I suspect the bike shop reputation is about 3/10 and I need to work on changing that.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Has management a view on the standard they expect a bike to be leaving the shop compared to other second hand things they sell ?
Would they sell a table that would break due to worn bits at a discounted price or mend it ?, sounds like you have been left to carry the can without a clear expectation from them of the level of mechanical worthiness they desire .If they want to do it on a shoestring thats fair enough as long as they realize quality and safety level they are happy to pass onto the customer .

Whe I'm next at work before we open I'll take some pictures of the shop for reference.

 

[Oldhippy]

Don't know how it would be seen in Germany but when I worked for a homeless charity I held an 'Open day' for the public so they could hopefully see the complexity of the shop to raise cash for the working of the charity in order to train and educate those who used the services. My boss thought me nuts (not at all unusual) but I ended up with all sorts of volunteering offers, equipment, goods etc once they realised what we were trying to achieve how people came to be where they were. In turn those who used the service redoubled their efforts and saw the worth of themselves. Sounds wishy-washy but it worked and I had a small work force more keen and eager as a result. Not sure you could apply it to your situation but thought I'd throw my gung ho worth in.

 

[classic33]

This is also true, and it's a constant tension, but it's also a great opportunity to help people realise they can achieve far more than they believed.

Oh, for goodness sakes, have you gone and broken the internet?

Hopefully not, can you fix it?

The second I added the "@" in front of Hobbesontour, the post text went bold.
Kept them seperate in this post you'll note. Just in case!

You're going to have to recognise that you have inherited someone else's way of working. As will everyone else there, who got used to it.

On a selling note, and a way of working, I worked in a shop selling one manufacturer's range of model trains. I took the time to listen to what they wanted and explaining why it may not work as they wanted. Explaining why, more often it was the simple thing of track radius that made them unsuitable. It took a few months, but the simple system was proved to work and we upped the sales. This raised questions, usually from the other shops, as to how I was making the sales. Back handers were mentioned by one shop. I was placing orders that none of the other shops were, both on quantity and price. At one stage we had twice as much in the shop as their flagship store.
The sale figures couldn't be disputed though.

Translate that to your situation and you are tasked with returning a profit on the goods that come in. You have people asking about what you have ordered/are ordering. Give yourself a bit of time, and trust yourself, because the results, good or bad, will not be immediately apparent. During this the time you might find yourself questioning yourself. Stick with it and give yourself time, but be willing to adapt.

In my case, the word of mouth reviews got round, and we as a shop had more buying from us. But we also had sales increase within other areas in the shop. So maybe if you're allowed point out that there's other stuff available on the premise's.

 

[classic33]

Whe I'm next at work before we open I'll take some pictures of the shop for reference.

Take a picture of your desk before and after being cleared. You can show them you can find your cup with ease on the tidy desk.

 

[All uphill]

My take, which may be rubbish, is that you need to do some work on managing expectations.

Put down the spanners for a few minutes and work on the simplest non-technical explanation possible of your situation and strategy . Something like:

"We will have a better business when we have good products for sale at higher prices; to get there will take time, hard work and some investment.

I know what I am doing. Now please support my efforts."

 

[Andy in Germany]

Don't know how it would be seen in Germany but when I worked for a homeless charity I held an 'Open day' for the public so they could hopefully see the complexity of the shop to raise cash for the working of the charity in order to train and educate those who used the services. My boss thought me nuts (not at all unusual) but I ended up with all sorts of volunteering offers, equipment, goods etc once they realised what we were trying to achieve how people came to be where they were. In turn those who used the service redoubled their efforts and saw the worth of themselves. Sounds wishy-washy but it worked and I had a small work force more keen and eager as a result. Not sure you could apply it to your situation but thought I'd throw my gung ho worth in.

Hmm... I don't know if this organisation does it, but many companies have open days here: it's a fairly normal "thing". Obviously this reduced in the last couple of years. I'll have to ask what we do here; it's an interesting thought.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

Don't forget that if you repair a tyre with a patch, you pay for a patch; if I repair the tyre I have to charge for my time as well, which comes at more than the cost of an inner tube.

Ah, Andy, you're an awful man for drip feeding information!

So labour is an element in calculating the profit then? It wasn't clear to me that this was the case in your circumstances.

So, for example*, if you work three hours cleaning and fettling a bike, say 3*€10 for labour, use parts worth €10 and sell the bike for €50 then €10 is recorded as "profit"?
*Numbers are random - I'm neither trying to overvalue nor undervalue your worth

If that is the case then the argument for using new components (or acquiring proper tools) becomes much simpler to my mind.


Now back to punctures and patches for a moment
Of course I understand there's a cost to the patch.
Now I understand there's a labour component too.
However, I have always found it useful to have what I call "back of house" jobs to be done. These are normally simple, straightforward and easily measured to be successful or not.
They can be very useful when someone is having a "bad day" and needs to get away for a while, or suffers a loss of confidence. Success is evident at the end, a pat on the back can work wonders.
They can also be a good tool to gauge new people and how they work in terms of organisation and focus.
Finally, a non-demanding task that can be worked on in pairs or groups can be a nice way to work as a group or pair and just talk.

No more patch talking from me

 

[HobbesOnTour]

That's the trouble; it's a "piece of string" question because I don't know how far people will ride. My instinct (correct or not) is to "over engineer"

Try (!) not to fret too much. The more you do the better you will get at making those decisions.

one of my ongoing projects is building and maintaining a price list for used and new parts.

That sounds like a lot of work!! At least for recycled parts. Different components, different levels of quality, different levels of wear and tear.
Why sell new components?

I would have thought a simple display of parts deemed not useful for you that people* make an offer on. Should you discover you need that chain guard (or whatever) it just gets pulled from the display.
*I'm thinking only people reasonably clued in on bikes would be interested in buying such parts.

Unfortunately he has reported that most of his current clients are women and uninterested in anything that gets their hands dirty

Pity. From a purely recycling point of view it's a pity. Maybe art schools would be interested? Or an online search for artists? (more work for you, so a suggestion for later).

this means I now know what I've got so I can find you some wheels if/when you come by in Spring...

I'l buy the coffee

I suspect the bike shop reputation is about 3/10 and I need to work on changing that.

I dislike the word "suspect".
It's always better to know, than to suspect. Unfortunately finding out can be tricky.
I would imagine that someone buying something in your store has different expectations than if they were buying in a "normal" second hand store. Or at least some of them. For some, it will not all be about maximising value for money - some will be happy to be contributing to a good cause.

By the way, something going wrong doesn't necessarily mean "disaster!". There's good evidence that a problem properly dealt with can turn a once off customer into a customer for life.
The trick is to have a good complaints process.

Reputations take a very long time to build up and can be smashed (especially these days) in a very short time.
When things are running more smoothly there are ways of bumping it up and getting the word out that there's a new sheriff in town.

As I read back over the last page or two there's an image of a pinball being bashed around a machine coming to mind.
Everything seems to be progressing smoothly then an inspection is announced and stress levels jump.
Comments are made that are getting under your skin.
Some eejit wants you to fix punctures
We're talking about budgeting, marketing, reputation management, meetings, punctures and all you want to do is .....

fixing bikes is great; doing it and helping people and getting paid for it is a dream come true;

You're doing fine. Keep the big picture in mind. Try to enjoy the journey as much as you can and focus less on the destination.
You're learning too and will have lots of learning opportunities (not mistakes!).

Best of luck!

 

[Andy in Germany]

The Great Tidying has commenced, and as mentioned above I'm getting to grips with the bicycle wheel infestation.

I decided the quickest way to do this was cutting the spokes, which had the added advantage no-one could fish the wheels out of the skip and bring them back later. I'd lay a wheel flat on a fairly solid box, cut all the spokes, and drop them into the box under the wheel dropping the hub in a basket for later, empty the wheel of leftover spoke bits, and dump them on a pile to be sold for scrap.

Of course this isn't as neat and tidy as it sounds; spokes are under a lot of tension in a wheel, and have a habit of pinging out of the wheel to places unknown; the stubs then would then drop out of the rims, and leftover rim tape, it turns out, will stick to just about anything.

Half an hour later the room looked like it had witnessed the dismemberment of some steampunk leviathan that had been fighting back for the entire process, with your correspondent centre stage wielding a large set of bolt croppers in a pair of orange gloves, size 41 boot on a half dismembered wheel, spokes flying into the distance, and unnoticed rim tape hanging off a sleeve like entrails.

Of course it was at this moment that the door opened and the boss arrived unannounced leading some local teachers on an impromptu tour...

 

[HobbesOnTour]

The Great Tidying has commenced, and as mentioned above I'm getting to grips with the bicycle wheel infestation.

I decided the quickest way to do this was cutting the spokes, which had the added advantage no-one could fish the wheels out of the skip and bring them back later. I'd lay a wheel flat on a fairly solid box, cut all the spokes, and drop them into the box under the wheel dropping the hub in a basket for later, empty the wheel of leftover spoke bits, and dump them on a pile to be sold for scrap.

Of course this isn't as neat and tidy as it sounds; spokes are under a lot of tension in a wheel, and have a habit of pinging out of the wheel to places unknown; the stubs then would then drop out of the rims, and leftover rim tape, it turns out, will stick to just about anything.

Half an hour later the room looked like it had witnessed the dismemberment of some steampunk leviathan that had been fighting back for the entire process, with your correspondent centre stage wielding a large set of bolt croppers in a pair of orange gloves, size 41 boot on a half dismembered wheel, spokes flying into the distance, and unnoticed rim tape hanging off a sleeve like entrails.

Of course it was at this moment that the door opened and the boss arrived unannounced leading some local teachers on an impromptu tour...

On a Sunday??!!
You are committed!

 

[Andy in Germany]

Ah, Andy, you're an awful man for drip feeding information!

So labour is an element in calculating the profit then? It wasn't clear to me that this was the case in your circumstances.

So, for example*, if you work three hours cleaning and fettling a bike, say 3*€10 for labour, use parts worth €10 and sell the bike for €50 then €10 is recorded as "profit"?
*Numbers are random - I'm neither trying to overvalue nor undervalue your worth

If that is the case then the argument for using new components (or acquiring proper tools) becomes much simpler to my mind.

I have to keep you interested somehow...

Probably this is a case of me assuming that if I know something so should everyone else and not communicating effectively...

Labour is a slightly fuzzy part of the pricing; 50% of the turnover is unrelated to bicycle sales because it is for the service we provide to our clients, but I've generally assumed (there I go again) that labour costs are a factor.

As you say, this changes the equation because I then have to calculate the cost of searching for parts/tools for 30 minutes.