As former owner of Bicycle Classics I relate to the issues facing the Corpuz family. Painfully familiar is the trouble of managing a retail and mailorder business at the same time. In fact, years ago during one of the many moves of Bicycle Classics we went from a convinient location with a large showroom in Needham MA to an obscure location further out of town with little retail square footage. Overhead dropped, and at the same time the ability to process orders without interuption from retail activities improved. In fact, our move was even written up in BRAIN (Bicycle Retailer and Industry News) and I'm quoted as saying somthing to the effect that we could finally get work done now that we weren't bothered by the customers. At that time, profits were not huge, but I was making some money and even had some extra time to work on my never-to-be-completed dissertation. But then for family reasons it was time to move cross county again...
Now of course, my BEST memories of the business was when I did have retail customers - and for years I tired to gapple with the desire and need (often to satisfy wholesalers who require a storefront) to have both retail and mail order operations.
And then there is the problem of what to sell stuff for. Barron, especially very early on, sold lots of items for extremely low prices - but if you have large amounts to sell and you are getting established, you need to move volume, that is what you do. But volume means lots of processing work and given the amount of inventory he currently has, I'm sure he needs to move quite a bit to pay his bills. When you have high mark-ups and low volume you can catch-up and give fantastic service. Conversely, the lower the prices and the higher the volume, the more you must hussle just to be sure you don't go into debt.
The vintage bicycle parts business is tough (although the new bicycle business is also extremely difficult). Hopefully when I was doing it I kept things running a tad smoother - but my profits were pretty close to nil much of the time - so something had to give. And the last version of the business when I owned it had a retail store selling new and vintage road superimposed on a mailorder business - which just sucked the life and motivation out of me. In Boston the formula worked more or less - but in Boulder vintage road and traditional steel was too much of an uphill battle. I do miss it though - and I do have a vintage bicycle business endevor in the works - but nothing of a traditional nature. I'll leave that to folks like Barron, Greg Parker (current owner of Bicycle Classics) and the esteemed Velostuf.
Mike Kone in Boulder CO
> Hi all:
\r?\n>
\r?\n> After a taking a short break and vomitting the last 3 days I decided it was
\r?\n> time to get back
\r?\n> to business and check my emails. It's interesting to read about yourself,
\r?\n> especially after you've just made some New Year's resolutions to try to do
\r?\n> even better. We appreciate input and even though we knew we probably had
\r?\n> some loose ends, I'm sorry to hear there were more than we realized.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Many of you are right, we are overwhelmed, too optimistic thinking we can do
\r?\n> it all, therefore not organized enough and nobody deserves to be ignored
\r?\n> like that, especially after several tries. And we want to apologize for
\r?\n> that, it's plain not good business, but more important to us, no way to
\r?\n> treat people.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Santa Barbara was a huge move for us from Holland and we're still dealing
\r?\n> with getting set up the right way. Good help is what we needed, but it's
\r?\n> hard to find people who know the vintage stuff and are affordable. As much
\r?\n> as we wanted to hire some great people, we're not there yet. So you plugg
\r?\n> along. Items get misplaced because we are dealing with thousands of items,
\r?\n> emails not answered because there just aren't enough hours in a day.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> People here have welcomed us beyond our expectations. We didn't want to go
\r?\n> retail yet but with people knocking on our door all the time, it felt so
\r?\n> rude not to introduce ourselves. We realized we couldn't keep that up and
\r?\n> therefore decreased our retail days from 5 to 3 to 2 days a week. We just
\r?\n> put on a sign last week we were going to be closed till further notice
\r?\n> realizing our internet business wasn't getting the attention it needed. So
\r?\n> I'm sorry to say for you who did want to visit and see us, we will be closed
\r?\n> to the public till further notice.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> All of you have made us what we are today. We burned down to the ground in
\r?\n> 2000 and now with over 15,000 customers in 45 countries, an international
\r?\n> move with children 13,11 and 4, between just Baron and myself it's been a
\r?\n> hec of a ride. We've personally loaded 4 - 40ft containers moving here and
\r?\n> are indeed a long way from being done and set up the way you all deserve to
\r?\n> be treated. I'm not going to make excuses or promises. I do know though that
\r?\n> with patience and a lot more hard work, better planning and some help coming
\r?\n> in we will improve as we go along. To tell you the truth, everyday I wonder
\r?\n> why I put myself through these 16 hour days, 7 days a week, with still more
\r?\n> work to finish that I should have done that day. I guess it's those emails
\r?\n> we receive or smiles on people's faces when they say, " Thank you, I was
\r?\n> finally able to put my bike back together after all these years".
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Happy New Year to all of you.
\r?\n> Baron and Cecile
\r?\n>
\r?\n> >From: greytaylor@att.net
\r?\n> >To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> >Subject: Re: [CR]My view about Baron and Cecile's situation...
\r?\n> >Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 06:38:16 +0000
\r?\n> >
\r?\n> >O, ho! Now I know why some parts I purchased on eBay seem to be taking a
\r?\n> >while to get to me. I am new to the list and wasn't aware of who was who.
\r?\n> >I'll quit worrying about the parts getting here. From what I've read they
\r?\n> >will most probably get to me, just in their own time.
\r?\n> >Guy Taylor, Anaheim, CA
\r?\n> >
\r?\n> >-------------- Original message from Joseph Bender-Zanoni
\r?\n> >: ------------
\r?\n> >
\r?\n> > > Baron's Ebay alter ego Banana Brain did something close to 5000
\r?\n> > > transactions last year with 98% satisfaction (not especially stellar but
\r?\n> > > not bad either) with the same complaints. But Ebay is brutal if you
\r?\n> > > don't deliver.