Retail is for the dogs. Bark bark, motherfucker!

ALSO Written 2019 (unpublished)

It's the end of retail as we know it

If you look around the main streets of America you may notice that small businesses are vanishing. Locally owned stores are being replaced by national brands, discount superstores, or just empty space. What used to be an overpriced cutesy shop filled knick-knacks is now an overpriced chain with the same bland bullshit you can find 2.9 miles away. Plastic factory stores filled with polyester polos and teenagers named Chase or Braxtyn. This shift in retail is not limited to any one area but I'll focus on Bicycles because that's the area that I know anything about.

Bike shops as most people think of them are dying, the smaller stores where you see 100 bikes on the wall are being replaced by corporate stores where you see 200 bikes on the wall. They have the newest shiniest trek or giant thing because some jerk regional manager told them they needed to bring it in, All because his jerk national manager needed to hit a quota.

 Gosh, Dave you had a .0285 percent increase in saddle bags, you get a bonus this quarter! We need better units per transaction if you're going to be hitting that yearly bonus though. 

Fuck you Dave, and fuck you Dave's boss

The problem is that bike companies got tired of making good products and hoping independent shops would want to buy them. It's way easier to open a corporate store and force the store manager to carry a glut of inventory then, let that manager bear the burden of selling a bunch of mediocre shit at a margin that would kill any independent shop. The company still gets to claim that this is a brilliant business strategy and look surprised that the bicycle stores that were invested in their brand end up under water at the end of the model year. "we are having a great year and selling a jillion FX 7.3s, you must be running a bad business if you are struggling."

Not all bike shops

The other thing that is replacing traditional shops is what I will refer to as service studios. A service studio may not have a single bike for sale. Studios may only do tune ups or fitting or even have a cafe with overpriced single origin coffee for MAAP clad twats to sip on and discuss tasting notes, mmm leather and apricot. 

Studios usually offer a passionate staff with tattoos and skinny jeans that ride steel bikes and listen to Joy Division on vinyl. Replacing the corporate embroidered polo with ripped jeans and a band tee shirt gives it a feel of authenticity, even if neither store has an employee that knows a crown race from press fit 86.5 dub bottom bracket. Studios with bikes will usually have boutique brands that you have never heard of made by hand in a country you will never visit. 

So there are your options

You can either pay a bunch of money at a corporate store for a bike made in southeast Asia by children or, you can pay a bunch of money at a boutique run by Renaissance faire escapees importing artisan bicycles from a former Soviet Bloc country you cannot pronounce.