more expensive bikes
We have continued to sell bikes steadily. With a huge increase in sales since returning to school a few things have really become apparent. The effort to convert someone from their first message to us on a listing, to get them to come take a look at the bikes is often exausting. It feels like one person comes for every twenty messages. It also seems the only way to get that one is to be responsive to all 20, theres no way to tell who is really serious. This just seemed to be the way it was when we were selling five bikes a week, But when you are selling 20 a week its a huge time commitment that doesnyt let you focus on growth. What makes it worse is we are proffiting about $30 on each of our $50 beach cruiser deal- a huge effort for $30. Customer feedback also varies. The reason we are able to sell bikes for $50 is because they are a little beat up. Some people love the price and the bike, some people love the price but dont like the bike, and many others come and hate the bikes, hoping for a higher quality product. Its a simple fact that if we sell $100 bikes at the same magins as our $50 bikes then we can sell half as many bikes and make the same amount of money. Its not about the money, its about the time. We have no trouble selling bikes, we have trouble getting the people to come buy the bikes while spending a reasonable amount of effort getting them
matteo and I have said this for a little while now, everytime we get a nice bike its gone in a few days. Heres a few examples
Bought a white road bike for $50, sold for $100 three days later
Bought a blue white and black schwinn road bike for 40, sold for $90 two days later
Bought 3 bikes from the pawn shop for $354, sold one for $300, one for $121, and another listed for $125
Bought two cruiser style bikes with gears for $60, sold one for $80 and the other for $65
When the third pawn shop bike sells for $125, that will come out to $377 in profit from seven sales. We would have to sell 13 $50 bikes to make the same amount of money, and the nice bikes sold in days, not weeks.
St.Pete is an intresting area filled with all income levels, some people want a nice bike and are happy to pay for it. It frustrating working so hard to get people to our bike lot, only to have them disappointed in our cheaper $50 bikes. We will see how it goes, and I will post my updates here! Also exciting news, I bought a tandem bike so either of us can pick eachother up at the front gate when we sell bikes, so we have a ride back to the dorm.
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