Takeaways
simplicity is best, having 10 different bikes of difforent prices makes things complicated. Keeping it simple pushes us to stay in line and in budget when looking for deals.
preparation and organization, right now we have 5 bikes that just need new tubes. Thats a pretty bad reason to not be able to sell bikes that we are holding on to.
Be patient, impulsivly buying inventory leaves you with a mess of bikes with issues. Gears that dont work, tubes that need to be replaced, issues that will leave the bike unsellable until the issues are fixed.
It is early november and we are welcomed back to florida with a very busy week of selling bikes (and a set of golf clubs). The first challenge was carrying 25 bikes down from our apartment. It was well worth the hassle after about 3 feet of storm surge got onto campus. After re-organizing we were able to sell 18 bikes and a set of clubs in the past week. Totaling over $1,100 in revenue and over $500 in profit. Most of our sales have come from facebook, With a few from the app nextdoor. Most of our visistors come to check out all of our bikes to decide which one they would like to take home. Keeping things simple, and having consistent prices among all our cruisers makes desisions and negotiating easier. Matteo and I just began created a performance based commision system to diviey the profits. Upon the sale of a bike each person will get 5%, who ever bought the bike will get 45% and whoever sold the bike gets 45%. This has definatley motivated each of us to get on facebook looking for deals, and be ore promt about creating listings. Before this matteo drove to buy bikes with deals we both got, And I was the one that sold them. In practice this isnt very productive. People could only get helped with bikes when I was free, and matteo could only go pick up bikes when he was free. Theres a lot of wasted and unproductive time when we each had one job. Now we can drive or sell based on our schedules.
We are going to start posting flyers around town as well as experiment with facebook ads again. My rational is that we are really only capturing an audience that is specifically looking for a bike as they search facebook or next door. Maybe if we put some listings out focusing on people that dont really need a bike might be intrested in one if an ad catches their eye. Odds are a flyer might attract and convert someone that otherwise would not have seen one of our formal listings.
The local bike market is as hot as ive ever seen it. People trying to clear up space in their grarage, as well as people looking to replace damaged bikes in the storm. Some also say they want to get into biking as the weather starts to cool down. What ever the circumstance the bike listings keep flooding in, all you have to do is scroll past my $50 cruiser bikes listings to see everyone elses.
I have had trouble in the past few days holding on to bikes for people who bail on me. From a few messages it is almost impossible to tell who is a serious buyer. Some send just a few messages then make a time, some send a few messages then bail. It is frustrating holding a bike for an unserious buyer because I want to be nice. From now on we will be first come first serve. This decision also came from an unfortunate incident on monday. One customer was running late, about 45 minutes late. Another person has just messaged me an was headed over as soon as I gave to okay. The two couples ended up showing up at the same exact time. A white tesla right behind a white 4 runner. All four of them walked over to me and my five bikes at the same time. I tried to briefly explain the situation, the couple who were late didnt seem to understand, and the other couple seemed pretty annoyed. It was definatley awkward as the each buyers came for some of the same bikes. Definatley a feeling I dont want to have again. The late couple ended up buying two bikes while the other two left shortly after their arrival empty handed. Overall, we are gaining momentum and will only be selling more bikes from here.
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