Bike Industry Crisis in 2024: Why I'm not surprised
Summary
TLDRIn this video, 'Bike Shop Girl' Arley highlights the decline in local bike shop sales and identifies three key issues: poor customer service, reliance on brand names rather than local marketing, and brands jumping on trends without growing the market. She emphasizes the need for shops to become experts in their categories, build community, and for brands to invest in local cycling events to foster a healthy cycling culture.
Takeaways
- 📉 The bike industry is experiencing a significant slump in sales.
- 🤔 Local bike shops often exude an inflated confidence vibe that may be hindering growth.
- 🛠️ Lack of training in humility and customer service is a major flaw, from brands to shops.
- 👥 Staff often act as if they're doing customers a favor or lack product knowledge.
- 🛍️ Bike shops need to improve sales, customer service, and product training to stay relevant.
- 🏪 Generalist bike shops should have specialists on every shift for different categories.
- 📈 Bike shops rely too heavily on brand names to drive sales instead of creating their own interest.
- 🚴♂️ Shops must become experts in the categories they sell to provide authentic recommendations.
- 📉 Brands are jumping on category trends without investing in market growth.
- 👨👩👧👦 The need for local bike shops and brands to build a healthy community of local cycling.
- 🌐 The importance of local bike culture and the role of a great local bike shop within it.
Q & A
What is the current state of the bike industry according to the transcript?
-The bike industry is experiencing a major slump in sales.
Why does the speaker believe local bike shops might be contributing to the decline in sales?
-The speaker believes that local bike shops have a lack of training, humility, and customer service, which is driving customers away.
What is the speaker's background in the bike industry?
-The speaker, Arley, has over 20 years of experience working in various roles within the bike industry, including as a master bike mechanic, managing stores, owning a niche cargo bike shop, and now creating content for the internet.
What are the three major flaws the speaker has experienced in local bike shops?
-The three major flaws are: 1) Lack of training, humility, and customer service. 2) Reliance on brand names to drive sales without creating interest in the local business. 3) Bike brands jumping on category trends without growing the market.
Why does the speaker think staff in bike shops often come across as unhelpful?
-The speaker thinks staff often act like they are doing customers a favor or seem unknowledgeable about the products, which indicates a lack of sales or customer service training.
What does the speaker suggest bike shops do to stay relevant?
-The speaker suggests that bike shops take sales, customer service, and product training seriously to compete with online retailers.
Why does the speaker believe bike shops should have specialists on every shift?
-The speaker believes that having specialists on every shift allows for better customer service and product knowledge, which is essential for a generalist bike shop carrying a wide range of categories.
What is the speaker's opinion on bike shops relying on brand names to drive sales?
-The speaker thinks that bike shops should not just rely on brand names to drive sales but should also create interest in themselves to drive more traffic and retain customers.
What example does the speaker give about bike shops not effectively marketing their products?
-The speaker gives the example of a local bike shop having two cargo bikes on their floor that aren't selling because they haven't done anything to market these bikes or build a community around them.
What does the speaker suggest bike shops do if they aren't experts in a certain category?
-The speaker suggests that if bike shops aren't experts in a certain category, they should not sell products from that category and instead focus on products they know and believe in.
What is the speaker's view on bike brands jumping on category trends?
-The speaker is critical of bike brands jumping on category trends without investing in activities that actually grow the market, such as family biking events and community building.
What does the speaker plan to do to help grow local bike shops and family biking?
-The speaker plans to start interviewing folks and potentially create a podcast interview series to share ideas and strategies that are working to build local bike communities.
Outlines
🚴♀️ The Decline of Local Bike Shops
The script discusses the current slump in bike sales and attributes it to the inflated confidence and poor customer service found in many local bike shops. The narrator, Arley, shares her experience working in the bike industry for over 20 years and outlines three major flaws she's witnessed. The first flaw is the lack of training, humility, and customer service from bike brands down to the shops. She describes issues with sales reps, slow warranty processes, and unresponsive marketing teams. Arley also criticizes shops for their lack of product knowledge and their reliance on brand names to drive sales rather than creating their own customer interest. She suggests that shops need to become experts in the categories they sell and build community around those products to stay relevant.
🛍️ The Need for Expertise and Community Building
In the second paragraph, Arley emphasizes the importance of local bike shops becoming experts in the categories they sell, such as cargo bikes, to compete with online retailers. She recounts a visit to a bike shop where staff lacked knowledge about the products they stocked, leading to unsold inventory. Arley argues that shops should focus on selling products they are passionate about and knowledgeable in, rather than trying to carry everything. She also discusses how bike brands are capitalizing on trends without investing in growing the market, using the example of family and cargo bikes. She suggests that more events and community engagement are needed to create a local bike culture. Arley concludes by inviting viewers to share their ideas for growing local bike shops and plans to interview people about successful community-building efforts.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Slump in Sales
💡Inflation of Confidence
💡Customer Service
💡Product Training
💡Generalist Bike Shop
💡Brand Names
💡Local Business
💡Community Building
💡Family Biking
💡Market Trends
💡Activation
Highlights
The bike industry is experiencing a major slump in sales.
Local bike shops often have an inflated confidence vibe that hinders growth.
Arley, a bike shop girl with over 20 years of experience, shares her insights.
Lack of training, humility, and customer service is a major flaw in bike shops.
Bike brands are difficult to work with, often unresponsive and slow with replacements.
Staff often treat customers as if they are an interruption.
Bike shop staff often lack product knowledge and sales training.
Bike shops need to focus on sales, customer service, and product training to stay relevant.
Bike shops rely too heavily on brand names to drive sales.
Local bike shops need to create their own interest and traffic.
Bike shops should not stock products they don't believe in or can't sell.
Bike brands are jumping on trends without growing the market.
Bike brands need to invest in the categories they're trying to grow.
Local bike shops and their brands need to build a healthy local cycling community.
Arley plans to interview local bike shops and groups to learn what's working.
The goal is to help local bike shops and communities grow and thrive.
Encouraging viewers to share their ideas for growing local bike shops and family biking.
Arley emphasizes the importance of getting on your bike and leaving the car at home.
Transcripts
if you're at all interested in bikes
you've probably heard that the bike
industry is currently experiencing a
pretty major slump in sales I recently
went through and visited many of the
local bike shops within 20 minutes of my
home and I'm honestly not surprised why
if you walk into the majority of bike
shops or view most bike brand websites
you'll experience this intense inflated
confidence Vibe and it's killing the
growth of everyday cycling here in the
US if you're new here I'm Arley AK bike
shop girl and I've been working in and
around the bike industry for over 20
years I've been a master bike mechanic
managed multiple large brand stores
owned my own Niche cargo Bike Shop
worked for bike brands and now I'm
making videos for the internet with a
goal of being inclusive welcoming and a
voice to get more people on bikes in
this video I want to outline the three
major flaws I've experienced in local
bike shops and the brands that they
carry over the last 20 plus years and
why I'm not surprised the local bike
shop is sadly slowly dying so the first
one is the lack of training humility and
customer service from the bike brands
down to the shops from a brand side I
hear too often how difficult it is to
work with so many major brands from
their sales reps being difficult or
missing important product information to
warranty and replacement parts taking
months or longer to arrive or the actual
brand marketing team not replying to
messages and comments on their social
media at some point you ask yourself how
does this person still have a job and
then you remember it's the bike industry
I mentioned I've visited a lot of bike
shops recently and I've probably visited
over a thousand bike shops in my time
within the
industry recently I've experienced the
majority of Staff created me like they
were doing me a favor like I'm
interrupting whatever they're doing or
they simply had no idea about the
product I was asking about that was on
their floor even though they believed
they did full confidence they believed
exactly what they were telling me even
though it was completely wrong you could
tell they hadn't received any sales or
customer service training and were
tasked with knowing an immense catalog
of product on their floor but they were
also not empowered to say I don't know
let me get someone that can help bike
shops to stay relevant in the time of a
quick buy on Amazon need to take sales
customer service product training
seriously or there's really no reason to
go to them and I can have it for cheaper
and quicker if I buy it online and if
you're going to be a generalist Bike
Shop you know the shops that carry every
category possible divide those
categories up to have specialist on
every shift instead of trying to get
every kid on your sales floor to know a
crazy amount of product info the second
thing that drives me crazy is that bike
shops rely on the brand names to drive
sales so they're relying on whatever
brand they carry to send them customers
through the dealer locator and it's not
completely their fault but they are
missing the basics of being a local
business there are so many bike shops
stuck in the Daily Grind of managing the
bike shop making sure the bikes are on
order parts are ordered bikes are being
fixed the customer in front of them is
being helped that they aren't actually
creating interest in themselves to drive
more traffic or to keep their current
customers riding more and spreading the
good word to their friends they're
simply relying on the dealer locator to
send them traffic because they have
great brands in their store so as an
example a local bike shop has two cargo
bikes on their floor they aren't selling
and they seem
genuinely confused on why they weren't
selling looking through their marketing
they haven't done anything to help folks
know that they have these bikes on their
floor why people would want these bikes
or better yet they've done absolutely
zero to build the community around these
bikes in the first place they simply
expect the bikes to sell because they're
on their floor that simply doesn't work
these days if I'm interested in
something I can get it delivered to my
house for much cheaper than buying from
a local bike shop so show me that you
are the leader that you are the expert
and you're the one that I'm going to
want to work with instead of just buying
now on some website so let's take this a
step further when I visited this bike
shop no one really knew about those
cargo bikes they haven't used them
they couldn't speak to the accessories
that worked and they've actually never
even tried living that life or trying
out that category they simply stocked it
because their brand sales rep told them
they had to and it was probably 4 to
$5,000 of product sitting on their floor
that they could have spent on something
else that they believed in if you aren't
going to become experts about a category
whatever that might be cargo Bikes
mountain bikes gravel bikes don't don't
sell it keep the money for products you
know and believe in because that's the
reason people want to buy local and my
last thing that is driving me a little
bit crazy right now is that bike brands
are jumping on category Trends and not
actually growing the market I was so
excited about certain large Brands
getting into the family bike and cargo
bike Market a couple of years ago but
other than a huge marketing Blitz for
launch they have done very very little
to actually grow their stores markets
now I'm not sure how to tackle this
personally as I would love to put on
family biking events in all the major
cities around North America I'm not sure
how I can pull this off yet as a mom of
three but it feels like we need more
activation and Brands to invest in the
categories they're trying to grow just
like we see in other niches of the bike
industry there's events there's local
tribes and
a community to show folks that they want
to be part of it so I say all these
things but at the end of the day we need
local bike shops and their brands to
invest in building a healthy community
of local cycling whether that's family
biking mountain biking Community or
whatever you can't have a local bike
culture without a great local bike shop
and you also can't have a good local
bike shop without a community to support
it so I don't have all the answers I can
just tell you the things that I've
experienced but if you've made it this
far do me a favor and leave a comments
for the YouTube Gods what are some ideas
you have to grow local bike shops and
family biking where you are I do plan on
starting to interview folks again having
a somewhat podcast interview series to
hear what's working across North America
from the local bike shops taking the
rains and building their local community
to local groups and bike buses and
events and how they got started down to
the Tactical of how they did insurance
and street closures and things like that
all with the hopes that there folks
watching that are going to Champion it
where you are right as always thank you
so much for watching until next time
stay well stay good and remember to get
on your bike and leave the car at home
when you can peace
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