Pcampeau

My small shop in Minneapolis had 25 bikes ready to go in mid March and we sold out by mid April. Right now I’m selling complete overhaul packages and tune ups for people who bought bikes on Facebook Market Place and Craigslist who are finding out the hard way that the “tuned and ready to ride” isn’t exactly that. I have way more business than I can handle and shipping delays for parts, and especially tires, are very common. I have 20 some bikes or so in my inventory yet that I haven’t gotten around to getting sale worthy and for the third time in two weeks someone has come along and picked one out for me to move to the front of my priority list. They can’t even ride it or try it out. We agree on what the price is, and it’s a bit more than it would’ve been last year, then I get it ready within a week or so. If at the time it’s ready they decide not to buy it, then well, it’s work I needed to do anyway, I’m 3 for 3 though so it’s working out fine. My shop has a good reputation but It never occurred to me to try to pre-sell a used bike until I ran out stock. It probably wouldn’t have worked before now.