Vancouver bike shops face uphill battle of rising costs
Posted June 23, 2022 8:06 pm.
At some points of the pandemic, it seemed bike shops were immune to COVID woes. However, some shop owners say the rising costs of operating are starting to catch up.
Simon Coutts, owner of Simon’s Bike Shop in Vancouver, says he’s paying 25 to 30 per cent more for parts and bikes due to rising costs. This is now affecting price tags in the store and the customers.
“The shipping costs that they that they’re charging us now, the surcharge they’re charging us on parts and stuff. And some of the manufacturers even chosen to go direct to the consumer,” he explained. “So that’s affected us a bit. But we’ve seem to have managed to put in some pretty big orders, but the lag time was probably a year, sometimes up to a year and a half. But that stuff is starting to come in. But it’s anywhere between 25 to 30 per cent more costing us wholesale.”
Chazz Romelis, owner of Cove Bike Shop in North Vancouver, says inflation is causing sales to slow down.
Adding that some big bike companies around the world are moving to consumer direct relations to cut their own costs — which if done over time could put smaller local bike shops out of business entirely, Romelis says.
Related Article: Vancouver e-scooter shop sees boom in sales as health authority urges caution
Coutts adds he’s also noticed that people’s buying habits have also evolved with some folks holding off on their purchases.
“You can see they’re not as confident to come in and just spend the money, they take a lot longer to make a decision. And then once they make the decision, they’re hoping they can get the best deal,” he said.
On top of rising costs – finding employees in a labour shortage has also been an obstacle.
“Trying to find people to work on weekends, holidays or extra time is almost zero. You just can’t find people to do that,” Coutts said.
However, with the renewed boom of tourists, Coutts is hoping it will help with sales.
“I’m hoping that there’s going to be a lot more tourists which have all seemed to have come back again and when our rental business will be busy, busy, busy, and people that aren’t working and taking time off, they’re gonna want to ride a bike.”
