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Comment by trentnix | Hacker News Reader

I've seen similar conversions to service-only, and I'll just say that service was a loss leader for us. We never found our service department to be profitable on service alone. Some of it was the complexity of the type of bikes we services (high-end, aero-focused bikes) and some of it was because service pricing has largely been subsidized by healthy margins on parts sales.

The service-only shops will never be anything more than cozy lifestyle businesses. And a few of those that own service-only shops actually live in the business to make ends meet.

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Maybe the high-end segment is too niche. But if there are hundreds of thousands of bike commuters in your urban area, you need quite a lot of service shops. Right now they seem to be over-saturated and give you a rdv mid-january if you ask. It would seem that things are going quite well for them!

I recently bought a new bike in one of those shops and it essentially amounted to the seller buying the bike online from his laptop in front of me.

Not sure what you mean about "cozy lifestile business", but is seems great, especially if it allows to make ends meet.

In U.S. cities it's more like thousands or tens of thousands of bike commuters (during good weather), but commuter bikes are either rented from bikeshares or are junkers that get replaced for a couple hundred dollars from time to time. If any market has customers, it's high end.

On the other hand, people who buy high-end bikes are very likely able to repair and adjust the bikes by themselves, so they will never set foot on an actual store. It's precisely the daily commuters not interested in bike mechanics who would need and appreciate the most a physical workshop. Not the sporty types! For example here in France there is the Cyclable line of stores [1] that are very explicitly not targeted towards the sport of cycling (you won't find any lycra shorts nor carbon frames), but to cycling as a means of transportation. They seem to be doing quite well. The bikes that they sell are also quite high-end. I tried to go there this summer but the first time I was turned down as I did not have an appointment!

[1] www.cyclable.com

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