Jim might be able to more acurately chime in on this, but after about a dozen years in the shops, I think its the other way around. Shops make money on partsand labor. At least for me, standard markup on a complete bike was in the 30-35% range. The markup on parts was 100% and labor was just pure gold. Thats was years ago, but even then the labor rate was based off of something like $75 hourly. Your shop may vary, but thats how it worked in my area (Cincinnati).
We liked to sell hot bikes for one reason only, because we got to build them. There was a special enjoyment from wrenching on top-o-the-line stuff. The boss wanted us changing front tubes all day, they were the fastest easy money that you could make on a two minute repair. More or less, a shop saying you can't run a 130 wheel in a 126 frame is just lazy. It probably tells me that the employee was also the mechanic and just didnt want to do the work. He'll get paid minimum wage either way. Scott On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 1:55 AM, hsmitham <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm sorry to say my experience with many bike stores here in Southern > California has been that they are devoted to selling new race bikes, > that's where the $$ is in their business plan. I have found some local coop > type institutions around rehabilitating old bikes, tho they can be > dis-organized and difficult to work with. That's why this group is > invaluable IMHO. > > Hugh > Sunland, Ca > > On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 9:26:00 PM UTC-8, Jim M. wrote: > >> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 8:41 PM, hsmitham <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> I asked my LBS and they figured it couldn't be done. >>> >> >> Wow, I'm all for supporting one's LBS, but it's too bad they have such >> limited knowledge. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
