Retail
Retail Briefs – October
Off Course As we reported here earlier this year, after 16 years trading as Commuter Cycles, the inner city Melbourne store rebranded as Off Course to reflect the much wider range of bikes that it now sells and services, including to gravel and adventure riding markets. After a long gap between visits, I recently dropped…
Ideas From Four Unique London Bike Shops
London, UK This article is part two of a two part series about London bike shops. You can see part one entitled “Inside London’s Bicycle Retail Scene” here. Recently I had the opportunity to spend a week in London and before arriving took the opportunity to tee up visits and interviews with the owners and…
Retail Briefs – Commuter Cycles Goes Off Course
Brunswick, Victoria In 2008 Huw Vellacott opened a one person workshop called Commuter Cycles. Based in inner city Melbourne, he was looking to serve the growing cohort of daily cycle commuters. But over the next 16 years as his team and product range expanded, the name no longer fitted the business. So from June 2024…
Retail Briefs: Popular Brisbane Bike Store Owner Dies During 53rd Birthday MTB Ride
Craig Saunders, long time owner / manager of River City Cycles in the Brisbane suburb of Yeronga, died suddenly and unexpectedly on Saturday 1st June. It was his 53rd birthday and he was out mountain biking with his son at one of Brisbane’s most popular trails. His family released the following statement on Instagram: “With…
Study Finds that K-Mart Bikes Cost More Than IBD Bikes
Sydney, NSW Year after year, independent bicycle dealers (IBD’s) miss out on sales of entry level bikes because the customer thinks it’s cheaper to buy a bike from K-Mart or another mass merchant. All of us in the bike industry know that most mass merchant bikes are rubbish! But it’s hard to get a sale…
Inside Rapha – Sydney and Beyond
Sydney, NSW I recently visited Rapha’s Sydney ‘Clubhouse’ and was kindly given permission to take the photos that you see accompanying this article. A Global Brand We’ll look more closely at the Sydney premises in a moment, but first a global overview. Rapha was founded in London, UK in 2004 by Simon Mottram. It quickly…
Want to Upgrade Your Store? Here’s 11 Great Ideas From Trek Sydney
Sydney NSW I recently had the opportunity to visit and take photos of Trek’s flagship store in Sydney. (Thanks to the team and management!) For over 40 years this store was known as Clarence Street Cyclery, which was founded and run by the Cook family. Throughout this time, Clarence Street Cyclery, which sold many different…
$12.4 Million Loss, Three NZ Stores Closed & New Gold Coast Store – Mixed Fortunes for Pedal Group
Coomera, Queensland Pedal Group will enjoy a moment of celebration in a generally tough year, when it opens a new store on the Gold Coast in the coming weeks. Amid recent news about sizeable losses and a drop in valuation for the organisation, and speculation the organisation is about to close multiple Australian stores, Pedal…
Cyberbikes Chooses a Different Path
Leichhardt, NSW Cyberbikes has just opened a relatively small shop on one of Sydney’s busiest stretches of road. Parramatta Road at Leichhardt is about six kilometres west of the CBD. This is a relatively densely populated area with century-old terrace houses and a wide range of apartment buildings. Unlike most small bicycle stores, founder Felipe…
Staff-Starved Store Finds Solution as Shop With No Bikes
Geraldton, WA Northern WA bike store owner Leighton Thomas has received plenty of puzzled expressions in recent weeks, as he outlined plans to reinvent his business as a “bike store with no bikes”. “I’ve never stumped so many people before,” according to the industry veteran of 33 years, including stints as some of bicycle retail’s…