speedevil 

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/indu...A#.W-7RPy3Mwcm

I hope no BF member's employment is affected.

Gconan

Bummer.

bikecrate

I know some people poo poo their shops, but I've had some great service there and would miss them if the one in our town folded.

jefnvk

I get a lot (most?) of my riding apparel there, as I refuse to buy things I can't try on first. Also good for basics that I unexpectedly need too, as they are open considerably longer hours than most local shops. That said, two of the three by me have drastically reduced their square footage in the past year and a half. For what they are, I always thought three in the Metro Detroit area was over extended.

More interested to see what this does to Fuji.

Flip Flop Rider

they had a good run and will be missed

Skipjacks

I get this. There are 2 Performance stores within 20 miles of each other in the Baltimore area.

And both are in areas with other LBS's.

Why?

They are oversaturating themselves. In Baltimore Performance might be better served by moving store locations to areas that don't have locally owned shops\ within 5 miles of the Performance stores. And there is no need for 2 of them.

They also wouldn't hurt themselves to rebrand as a normal person's bike shop. The 3 LBS's within 5 miles of one of the Performance stores in this area all cater to a higher end market. They still sell the $500 bikes but they focus on the $2000+ bikes. Performance tries to do both and shouldn't. They should cater to the sub $1000 bike market (which is THE VAST MAJORITY of bike buyers) and advertise as such. Make the marketing "Do you want better than the Wal Mart bike but don't want to spend a mortgage payment on a new bike? Come check out the latest Fuji bike models at Performance"

Here, in this market, I think that is a good plan. In another market that might be the opposite of what they should do based on competition. And that is where a national bike retail chain needs serious flexibility to cater to the local market. You can't make a one size fits all bike shop and insert it into every area. It won't work.

Juan Foote

I will also be sad to see this chain close, as many of the mentions above apply. I get my apparel here most of the time, particularly riding shorts.

Marcus_Ti

I used to buy stuff from them online...but their prices quit being all that great years ago...and the last time I ordered from them a year ago it took over a week to ship. Not impressed with how they handle their e-commerce anymore. Hopefully for the sake of the employees they can fix it.

Their problem is like Sears and BestBuy and Circuit City...they're a warehouse store that often charge LBS prices. And their service, online anyway, is sub par.

fietsbob

So maybe web sales will survive , time will tell..
Staff, (holding company investors and in store ) inventory & leases were,
it seems, too much..

and winter is always a hard time in bike biz.
my local survives on repairs , sales of bikes is slow,
though it has game hunters hitting the woods on MTBs now...




...

indyfabz

It's Chapter 11, which is reorganization, not liquidation. Some of you have the place buried already.

Marcus_Ti

And I quote:

"He said that under the current store leases, 40 locations are unprofitable and are likely to be closed. But Cunnane said leases on some of those 40 stores could be renegotiated to make the stores profitable and more likely to stay open.

"We've been trying to renegotiate those leases since we bought (Performance)," he said. "It's hard to have any kind of leverage because we have about 100 landlords." Cunnane said Performance doesn't own any of its stores. The company owns its office in Philadelphia and its offices and warehouse in North Carolina."

Odds are lots of people are going to get re-organized into oblivion, no matter what. So no, it isn't really premature....especially given that after 2 years of trying to renegotiate those leases they still have unprofitable leases.

ogmtb

Not surprising at all.

They local store closed 3 years ago due to competition from much better retailers. Performance hasn't been missed.

ksryder

Remember when everyone lost their minds because Niner filed a Ch. 11 petition in order to facilitate a sale?

MattTheHat 

I don't see that at the stores here in the Dallas area. I'm a rewards member, so I get 10% back to start with. Additionally, they seem to almost always have a 20% off coupon that's good for most items in the store. Admittedly, I've only been shopping there for a couple of months. Maybe that 20% off coupon is a fairly recent thing.

I literally just got off the phone with them to correct a problem with a recent return getting credited incorrectly. The customer service rep fixed the problem.

I hope my local store isn't affected. I really enjoy shopping there.

-Matt

MattTheHat 

Interestingly, I just noticed this page https://www.performancebike.com/shop...ormance-update. It shows a list of stores which will no longer be processing their Team Performance Rewards points. I'm not sure what that means otherwise, but that *could* indicate stores they will be closing.

-Matt

jefnvk

Actually, one change I hope they come out of it making is better integration between PB and Nashbar, maybe killing off the Performance house brand completely in favor of making it all Nashbar, and allowing local stores to act as a front for Nashbar (think ship to store, easy returns, etc)

Considering there are 41 stores on that list, I'd say that is very likely. Thankfully, it is the least used store of mine in the Detroit area that seemingly is getting the boot. Unsurprising, considering it is the one with such turnover of staff I was once offered a mechanic job, and the one whose footprint got cut to almost nothing.

rm -rf

So Performance has been struggling for years, and their wholesaler bought them because they owed the wholesaler an excessive amount of money.

The local Performance store is actually one of the better local bike stores, with good mechanics and a bigger inventory than most of the independents.

They basically stopped carrying Pearl Izumi, going to house brands and adding Louis Garneau, after having the best Pearl Izumi selection of any local store. I now try to avoid LG items, I've had problems with design or fit on most of the ones I've bought over the years. And their shoe and helmet inventory is much smaller. Too bad, the other local stores are mostly too small to carry a wide inventory. I wonder if most non-impulse bike equipment and clothing purchases will be almost completely online soon.

Doctor Morbius

I think some stores will be closing.
https://www.performancebike.com/shop/free-shipping

As Of 11/16/18 Ship To Store Is no long available to the Performance Bicycle retail locations listed below. Ship To Store is available to all other Performance Bicycle retail locations:

Juan Foote

When the writing is on the wall....hard to ignore. Signals like this going up in the age of e commerce is a death sentence.

indyfabz

Yes. Some people will lose their jobs. But that wasn't my point. My point was that posts #5 and #7 have Performance going out of business due to this filing, which is simply not the case. It may happen down the road, but at this point, it is trying to reorganize, not liquidate.

Lazyass

Damn. Performance is the only actual bike shop I like visiting because of their selection of stuff and prices compared to regular shops.

no motor?

Same. They've been my LBS since they opened in my area and were also one of the few drawbacks from my moving away from them in the near future. I'd thought I'd just go back to buying from Nashbar after I moved but that may not be an option either.

no motor?

And the store I shopped at is on the list.

Kedosto

I'm not sure how many shops they have in California, but by the looks of those lists it looks like they're leaving the state entirely.


-Kedosto

trailangel

^^No^^