When you have to cut the flunky off from eating meatball subs every day for lunch, cuz he's starting to smell like one. This was a long time ago, but true. You'd thought I took his birthday away. I told him he could still have 2 a week on non consecutive days, I'm not totally heartless.
Ok, just curious, what is everyone's rules for EP'ing a bike? Gotta be a brand you stock? Brand you can get? Only specific models that you stock on floor?
Either a brand you stock, or a brand you plan on representing. Testing a brand prior to carrying it is definitely rad.
If it's something you catagorically cannot get in your shop, aka you only deal Niner and want a DJ bike, get whatever the f*ck you want, cause it's not in competition.
That's my moral high ground approach. Others will certainly have other opinions, but I feel my customers deserve the best advice I can give them through the shop. If there's another brand or company that we simply can't compete with, I advise them to go elsewhere. Don't buy bolts from us, go to a bolt company. If you want allen keys, hit up the hardwear store. If you want some gnarly one off part that we can't get and we can't really do anything similar, shop elsewhere until we've brought it in/want to get it.
Ok, just curious, what is everyone's rules for EP'ing a bike? Gotta be a brand you stock? Brand you can get? Only specific models that you stock on floor?
For me to EP it just has to a brand we carry. Of course I wanted a Canfield Riot, so now we're a Canfield dealer. lol
Its nice though because now we have one at the store people can check out if they are interested in doing something a little different.
same deal i generally limit myself to what ever brands / bikes the store i work at carries. now obviously i dont work at a Raleigh dealer anymore but we also dont really sell high end performance bikes so im not worried that way. got some rad af accessories/tires ect so i can flex those on the bike i just got. that being said i own 1 bike that wasnt custom built/ pieced together from spares so im less stressed about the image of me riding bikes we dont sell. im also not a sales guy by any stretch so I generally get less "oh why dont you ride brand X bike when you sell brand Y" its more "what should i change on my bike to accomplish (insert cycling goal / type here) ".
We didn't sell dirt jump or downhill bikes so I was safe to run whatever pretty much Tried riding a Reign for actual mountain biking but it was just too little bike for what I need, then sold it for almost as much as I bought it for. I miss being able to do that haha.
Either a brand you stock, or a brand you plan on representing. Testing a brand prior to carrying it is definitely rad.
If it's something you catagorically cannot get in your shop, aka you only deal Niner and want a DJ bike, get whatever the f*ck you want, cause it's not in competition.
That's my moral high ground approach.
This is my approach too. It recently came up at the shop, and ultimately lead to someone getting let go (amongst other things), but was just curious what everyone else has as EP requirements.
If it's a core category that your shop sells (Road, Mountain, CX, etc...) you need to be riding what you can recommend and sell to customers. If it's an outside category (dirt jump/bmx), ride whatever you can get access to at a good EP deal, and odd's are if a customer ever wants to buy one, you can become a dealer easily to get them one (ex: Deity).
I think its a balance though. When I worked for a Trek dealer in the UK I never owned one, I would of loved to had a fair few of them though. But the cost of them compared to other bikes I could build part by part though was cheaper by a fair whack.
It was only when I was leaving they brought out frame sets and Trek Uni had only been around for about 9 months. If I went back now would almost definitely get one with the deals they have now.