Why don't I buy local???? :\

[Grip]

This is really a moooocho grande problemo! From a customer's point of view, yeah it does annoy me a little when I can't walk in to ANY LBS and straight out again with what I want. But lots and LOTS of shops around the country are actually customers of ours so I get to talk to one hell of a lot of shops and know for a fact that NONE of them could ever afford to actually stock everything they would like to... or even evrything that they THINK they should. Bottom-line is there is just way too much "sellable" stuff out there to ever keep every prospective customer happy by having it on the shelf waiting for a sale.

 

[toodles]

I support my LBS as much as I can because the guys there have helped me heaps by fixing stuff for free, lending me something to keep rolling or even taking parts off display bikes for me when I needed them ASAP. But on occasion my money goes elsewhere - I shop around for armour because my shop doesn't stock that many sizes and I can't order something if i don't know it fits. Also I just bought a rear mech from phantomcycles.com becaue it was $60 cheaper than my shop could do it for. Dunno why that is but it's money I'd rather save (and I ended up needing it to buy a new brake lever from my LBS anyway).

 

[Sommoner]

Since I bought my mtb from my lbs I have thought about mail orders, but I have always gone back to my lbs. Now because we have built up this relationship, im am friends with the guys and have a chat to them when I call past. Now I don’t think I would go to another shop because they treat me as a friend and not just as some guy wanting parts, also they now give me a discount