Re: Dear LBS

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Andy Goodell <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> It made me think that this is really a chicken and egg problem. If they
> generally had the parts I needed, I wouldn't rely on buying parts online as
> much. But since I've been let down nearly every time I went to buy locally,
> it's become normal to just buy the parts online for cheaper.

After dealing with situations exactly like yours for the last few
years with the local shops, I developed a system for buying locally
vs. ordering online.  If the LBS has it in stock right now I'll buy it
from them.  The local shops around here are uniformly bad at ordering
parts in a timely manner and communicating the status of the order.
Based on some seat-of-the-pants figuring, I have about a 25% chance of
getting what I ordered when I'm supposed to get it at the price I was
quoted.  The other 75% consists of "forgot to order it", "the
distributor was out of stock", "it's been discontinued", "sorry, we
must have put in the wrong part number", "it's a little more expensive
than we thought it was going to be", "we tried to get it from QBP,
then we tried Trek, then we went straight to manufacturer and it's
gonna be another week, sorry you had to make another trip, what's your
phone number again?", etc., etc.

If they don't have it in stock right now I'll just order it from an
online retailer.  It's easier and less time consuming.

-- 
Scott Loveless
http://www.twosixteen.com/fivetoedsloth/
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