Can anyone tell me why bike shops only open for half a day on Sunday?

[avgas]

Imagine if we extended opening hours.......

How about if you DECREASED them. yes you heard me right.
Say you do 3-8pm and a few hours on the weekend.
I would be surprised if business did no double. And you would be working less hours.
Or do you only sell to beneficiaries and high rollers. AKA those who don't work normal hours.
Because fact of matter is that you will be only getting the 'truly dedicated' through the doors during working hours, not the average biker-with-bucks.

[onearmedbandit]

Or do you only sell to beneficiaries and high rollers. AKA those who don't work normal hours.
Because fact of matter is that you will be only getting the 'truly dedicated' through the doors during working hours, not the average biker-with-bucks.

Really? I have Mondays and Tuesdays off, and I'm neither a beneficiary or a 'high roller'. In fact if you weren't so blind I think you'd find a lot of 'average' people work jobs that give them either entire days off during the normal week or at least a few hours.

[SS90]

How about if you DECREASED them. yes you heard me right.
Say you do 3-8pm and a few hours on the weekend.
I would be surprised if business did no double. And you would be working less hours.
Or do you only sell to beneficiaries and high rollers. AKA those who don't work normal hours.
Because fact of matter is that you will be only getting the 'truly dedicated' through the doors during working hours, not the average biker-with-bucks.

It's about the variety you get with motorcyclists.

For example inner city bars.

5 years ago, a friend decided that he would close his (popular) inner city bar on Mondays because it was so slow, it barely paid the wages, if at all.

It turned out that closing Mondays affected his business for the rest of the week....he needed to be open all week long, because customers needed to know that the bar was open, not be unsure if they where or not (so not bother checking), and find a bar that they where certain was open.

This bar I noticed 3 months ago is now open all week.

Granted, bike shop customers can (and will) ring first to see if a shop is open (sometimes just hoping someone will answer the phone), so quite often the visit is planned, rather than "random" (as choosing a bar can be)

The problem that I see with your suggestion is that there will now be a group of customers that are disadvantaged.

(out of towners coming to make some business.....you would be surprised how often that happens), for example would be surprised to see that a bike shop was closed at 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon.

It's not possible to please everyone, but you can find that compromise works, and things just "find their own groove".

I whine a bit about the poor wages (comparitively), but that is also another point.

Not too many people will be really happy working till 8pm (what about the young kids that are in bed EVERY night before you get home from work.....sacrifices like that get made all the time, but the trade off for crappy hours & hard work is more often than not,well rewarded when it comes to payday.....not really applicable in this industry (no matter what part of the world you are in)

Lot's of bike shops in Tokyo are open late nights (9pm), but they are staffed by, 2 guys for the "graveyard shift" so that goes to show that even witha city with millions of people, how big the demand REALLY is when it comes to later open hours..... if it really was the key to business growth, then you would logically have MORE staff on at night, rather than a skeleton crew.

Again, the market dictates the business models.

Bike shops don't get together and plan the "screw the customer" "working week" hours, the size of the population dictates it.

Coffee shops, big profit, millions of Kiwi's drink it, so even with a small population, there is plenty of business to go around.

Not the same for bike shops.

I don't believe that the opening hours of shops stops people from getting into the game, there are other reasons for that, like I have said before, every single bike shop owner would dearly love for shops to be open 24/7 (if you could justify it with 24/7 type turnover, it would be great!

I just think that "odd" (for retail) opening hours for a bike shop would be novel at first, but soon it would become weird...after all who wants to work when your mates are out enjoying their bikes after finishing work on a Summers evening.

[imdying]

How many times has a slaesman waited for some snot nosed drivler to "come in with the money"......

10 years in my case... and since then I've brought two brand new bikes in 3 years, plus a second hand one, plus oodles of gear... snot nosed drivlers get degrees and have discretionary spending coming out their ears. They also remember who was a cunt to them when they were a young dreamer buying cheap crappy tyres and helmets... That's a big FUCK YOU Graham Casbolt... I really enjoyed purchasing my brand new Fireblade from the other Honda shop... shame you don't have a monopoly on the brand in Christchurch any more, isn't it...

[SS90]

Yikes!.........

[onearmedbandit]

Yikes!.........

If you've dealt with Graham you'd understand. I had the wonderful experience of working for him...

[avgas]

Really? I have Mondays and Tuesdays off, and I'm neither a beneficiary or a 'high roller'. In fact if you weren't so blind I think you'd find a lot of 'average' people work jobs that give them either entire days off during the normal week or at least a few hours.

Fuck really?
Right now I am looking at getting as many days as I can. Got last weekend. Looks like I will get most of this weekend.
40 hours sounds like a hollow promise to me whenever I sign a contract these days.
First employer out of uni screwed me good. Contract stated "Minimum 40 hours a week" so they didn't have to pay me overtime.
I don't mind working long days, but soon as you pass 14 days without a break - you go a little crazy.
Perhaps I just take too much on.

Wouldn't it be cool though if shops had like a massive marketing build-up, then were open for like 2 hours a week (say 7pm-9pm on a Friday)
big party, big sales - bam in 1 go. Heaps of hype. Then the rest of the time it was hours like normal.

Could add bit of enthusiasm etc

[onearmedbandit]

Wouldn't it be cool though if shops had like a massive marketing build-up, then were open for like 2 hours a week (say 7pm-9pm on a Friday)
big party, big sales - bam in 1 go. Heaps of hype. Then the rest of the time it was hours like normal.

Could add bit of enthusiasm etc

When I was in car sales we did just that at one of our yards, once a month we'd have a huge 'behind the wall' weekend. First few were incredible, sold more units in 2 days then in an entire month. But the flipside was that the rest of the month was just dead, with only the odd out-of-towner buying, or locals checking out the stock and asking 'how much will this be in the sale, and this one, and that one?". You could tell them that you'd sell it to them now for a $1 and they'd still say they'll come back during the sale to see if it was cheaper. Then the enthusiasm for the sales died as well, and that was the end for that promo. Despite the deals still being the same or if not better, and us still putting on a party atmosphere people just became very complacent about it all.

[bittertwistedcute]

Farken hell I don't get some of you guys!!! Do you want to be massaged and given a warm bath and a cup of cocoa or something when you go to a shop?

Yes actually I do

[avgas]

How about a naked party. Come naked and get 10% off.
You could also give a discount

[Brian d marge]

A few things I have noticed here ( I think) One view is of the bike shop in the traditional mode of tyres plugs etc the other is a coffee /cafe style and with one shop going sort of half way
Bikes are a commodity which mean the market decides the price and someone will be doing it cheaper hence the slim profits ,,,,
niche markets MAY be sustainable in larger centres or or farmers in smaller centres but to turn over the stock needed to employ one or two people , Im reaching for a magic wand here

Its not just bikes , My friend ran a tuning shop in Hungary until a few weeks ago , importing stuff from Hk tuning here in Japan ( the fast and the furious type stuff) , market dead , closed shop.

I sat down and looked at the state of play ( and still do ) in order to find out my price points and the maximum number of people with those price points
Helping people with their leisure time seems to cross a few boundary's , but I cant put my finger on one thing that will pay for my gasoline in the Rolls Royce
Tis a tricky one this ,

Stephen

[SS90]

Wouldn't it be cool though if shops had like a massive marketing build-up, then were open for like 2 hours a week (say 7pm-9pm on a Friday)
big party, big sales - bam in 1 go. Heaps of hype. Then the rest of the time it was hours like normal.

Could add bit of enthusiasm etc

It has been tried, but as one arm bandit mentioned, it "gets old", and after a few weeks, when you look at the figures, you make the same business as months before the later hours.

What's the gain?

The same money for more work and more hours.

It's too much to ask of the staff.

Opening form say 1pm to 8pm...... no wholesalers are open (they have office hours), you can't register a new bike (LTSA is closed), you can't arrange insurance (office hours), or finance (office hours). you see what I mean, the opening hours are not dictated by "mean arsed arrogant bike shop types", it's dictated by the market, and the industries that support it.

IF (for example) a shop ONLY sold accessories, nothing else (like bikes I mean), and therefore did not have limitations of requiring "support" industries (insurance, registration etc) then PERHAPS they could operate as people here suggest.

You have to work in an industry before you can judge it.

[SS90]

If you've dealt with Graham you'd understand. I had the wonderful experience of working for him...

Ha, yea Graham was "old school" alright (Tommy Mcleary too)

[Big Dog]

Dagnamit - I can't go and change the OP.

After yet another response from a KBer who couldn't be arsed to read past the first post I thought I 'd go and edit it to correct the Sunday mistake and to tell them to stop damn well replying to the OP in a thread that has had over 500 RESPONSES TO IT!

FFS don't people realise that they should at least have the courtesy to read to the end if they really feel the need to post on the flipping thread.

Dagnamit dagnamit dganamit - rant over.

Some times I am just too incensed by what I see to not rant on.

Forgive me if you feel slighted because I responded to your post. Perhaps you should either not post something that is so inflamatory (as evidenced by the 500 posts) or just sigh quietly, unsub from the thread and ignore the quote notices you get on this subject.

[IdunBrokdItAgin]

Some times I am just too incensed by what I see to not rant on.

Forgive me if you feel slighted because I responded to your post. Perhaps you should either not post something that is so inflamatory (as evidenced by the 500 posts) or just sigh quietly, unsub from the thread and ignore the quote notices you get on this subject.

Okey Dokey,

No personal slight taken - just miffed that posters can't be arsed to read past the opening post before posting an opinion on a thread. A thread evolves through its posters. A poster, who doesn't read through a thread before replying to said thread, resets the thread back to the opening post.

In simple terms: Don't get arsey with me for getting annoyed by your lack of thoroughness. Please feel free to post replies to old posts which mean nothing to the current stage of the thread.

Why?, please astound me by posting such a simplistic answer to the OP that the other 500+ responses meant nothing.

FOR THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING - you dismiss every other posters respsonse by not reading them and posting your own - it is not about my ego but about yours.