Buying a Blender is NOT Like Buying a Bike Part…
Dealing with my Broken Manitou has taught me a few things about the retail bicycle industry that I did not realize. Having worked in retail for over 16 years, you would expect that the type of service from one retail market, would be the same in another. I was seriously mistaken.
As I discovered during my experience of being a victim of a defective bicycle suspension fork, there is a huge gaping chasm between the type of service you will get when buying a blender, and the type of service you get when buying a bicycle part….
Buying a Defective Blender
If you buy a defective product, like a blender, from any regular retailer that sells them, and it breaks within a short time period, retailers will not make it your problem in their regular return period. It could be 10 – 30 days. Some retailers push a first year exchange for a defective product. In that time period, you would be offered a replacement, a credit, or an upgrade if the retailer plays their cards right, to make the sale. Any retailer asking that the product be repaired by a local service depot would have that blender shoved up their happy parts.
Buying a Defective Bike Part
If you buy a defective bike part, like say, a bicycle suspension fork, your relationship with the shop ends there. As I am finding out, the way things are done is way different in this industry. In my case, the fork would not be replaced for me if defective in the first few days of use, unless uninstalled, in most cases, but of course, hard to tell, unless you use it which means installing it. The way it is dealt with is a bit of a redirection to a third party: The shop drops out of the picture. The third part is typically a service center of some sorts that deals with repairs of the product. Repairs? Well, my blender would have been replaced! Well, sorry, not going to happen.
As I was told, the bicycle industry is very much like the motorcycle industry. Even if your motorcycle part breaks in the shop’s parking lot, you’re not going to get an exchange on the spot. You’re going to get it shipped to the depot, and the depot will decide whether to fix or repair that part. Uh…Yeah…
So as you can see, there is quite a gap in the type of service that you will get in both industries. Even in the electronics industry, which I’m very familiar with, you will have an exchange most of the time, as long as it is in stock, and you purchased within a reasonable amount of time. It’s disturbing to see how far behind this industry has lagged behind other retailers, making this extremely surprising to me as a veteran of retail. I thought I had seen it all. I guess there is still a lot I haven’t seen in retail afterall.
There is so much opportunity for bicycle retailers to step up and raise the bar. In my case, I was fully prepared to accept an exchange or an upsell to the defective part I bought. They didn’t have to discount it. They just had to make sure it was installed, and that I was out on the road before I knew what I had done. Instead, they seemed locked to the fact that it is a defective part, and these are the steps they needed to take to get it dealt with. Let’s cost this out…
Doing it By The Book…
I purchase a $749.00 fork. It breaks. A technician needs to look at it (Minus $50.00), but I’m on my way afterwards, however, there is a chance it may break again. It breaks again. A technician needs to look at it again (Minus $50.00). Now the shop needs to send my fork away and install a loaner fork for me (Minus $25.00 for shipping and Minus $50 to swap the fork out). When the fork comes back, the shop will need to reinstall my new/old fork (Minus $50.00). So from my initial purchase of $750, they are left with $525.00, and probably no profit by now.
Doing it Differently…
I purchase a $749.00 fork. It breaks. A technician looks at it (Minus $50.00), but I’m on my way afterwards. Fork breaks again. Shop offers a replacement, but unfortunately, the fork I bought is no longer available, so shop offers an exchange for something else, or an upgrade. I really want to ride, and don’t want another problem, so I spend MORE money and buy a $1300 fork. Shop takes care of me, reinstalls the new fork (Minus $50.00), takes my old fork back and they deal with it later. I’m so grateful of the service, I plop down another $200 on tires and accessories because I felt good about what happened, even though they took me for more money. Later, the shop gets the old fork back from the service depot (Shipping Minus $25.00) and they sell it for $700.00.
So after all that, the shop comes up with a $2075.00 in sales.
Makes you go “Hmm…” doesn’t it?