Coles and Woolies are still growing, sorry folks if you think your local area anecdotes about Aldi/Costco represents the broader reality. Range, price, expectation...they all fit their own niches.
@John - Times have changed though. Back then online sales were nothing like they are now, there was Jensons and FTR and maybe a few others. Now there are big orgs like CRC, Wiggle and smaller yet still significant cats like Pushy's, Torp7, etc. and bikes shops also had to live with a few years of a very powerful AUD.
The afternoon I called up Unreal Cycles in Seattle and ordered my first E-13 chainguide, I could see there was a storm brewing for the highly conservative Australian market. At that time I paid less, shipping included, than the local distributor's
ex-GST,
ex-postage wholesale price by $10, even including the international phone call. In fact it also arrived faster that it would have from the distro (who marked up express post at almost double), and truly the main reason I even went international was because they had the item in stock, unlike the distro who had practically nothing.
You know what the problem with that is? After about ten years,
IT'S BASICALLY THE SAME! The biggest force of change in the industry has been attrition.
I worked in a bike shop that failed where, at the end, the recurrent customers couldn't believe it could happen to such helpful, friendly guys. Problem is, they represented some sort of loosely defined 'core' to some of the staff who somehow perceived them to be of particular value and fell over themselves to help them; when in reality all the customers should have been the core, because customers are obviously the core of a retail business. This explains the polarised comments about service I think, because it's pretty common in shops that go under.
Bike guys are rarely good retail guys, although there are some retail guys who are into bikes.
Also, calling Giant an outlier... Yeah, they are because they have a good business model! Any brand could be another Giant. Giant were NOWHERE 20 years ago. Even 10 years ago their product was still seen as entry level and viewed with some derision by many. If you don't stick your neck out and take the risk instead of placing it on the customer, well you'll be doomed to be I dunno, Dirt Works.