CI.N Podcast: Retail experience guru Donny Perry talks modern bike shop

The guest on CyclingIndustry.News’ second podcast of 2022 is one of the brightest minds in bike retail experience, author of a best-selling book on the subject and Fox Racing’s Director of Retail Experience Donny Perry.

Leading Out Retail, while nearly a decade old, has been widely lauded as a must read for the bike shop manager. At 240 pages, the bike shop bible covers broad ground in a way that any bike shop staffer will be able to connect with. Topics span staff training, merchandising, bike shop experience from a consumer’s viewpoint, marketing your business, workshop efficiency and organisation of the business.

Now presented by Cycle Systems Online‘ co-founder Sean Lally, CI.N’s Podcast seeks to find out from Donny how the bike retail experience has evolved over the years and what, if he were to write an update on the book, might be included in the face of modern challenges to business.

With consumers entering bike shops (and indeed retail of all kinds) seeking greater levels of experience Perry says of a shift in focus to community built around a business: “Loyalty can be a myth we tell ourselves. I would strongly bring caution to this, the consumer can change their point of view on things without much influence, that can be a different price, new sport they going into, different emotional connection or location elsewhere. Loyalty due to some personal affiliation to the brand is pretty rare. I would build a businesses off a balance of new customer acquisition and customer retention. if that balance isn’t healthy that’s something to take note of.”

Perry advocates looking at one’s self to see how we personally shop, or perhaps are influenced by factors around the shopping experience, applying that mentality to customers that may come in.

The conversation then turns to the bike market’s notoriously low wages on the front line in workshops or on the sales floor. How can bike shops strike a balance that suits both the business’s bottom line, but also offer the staffer growth opportunities that matches their contribution.

“When it comes to the wages it’s written into the DNA of every single company to get the most value from people at the lowest cost. It’s not a bad thing, it’s not the fault of any business owner, it’s just how businesses naturally evolved to function. In order for that to change people at every level of the business need to have kind of a quantifiable measure on their contribution. If a point of sale system or a business is not capturing the data of each employee, those employees don’t have a tool to take into a conversation on their pay rate. I look at it both ways; what is the growth development opportunity? How much are they learning? Where are their promotions? What is their long-term capability of growth? And then when it comes to what they’re being paid does the employee have an opportunity to say ‘hey, bike shop owner, I have created this much value for you and therefore I believe I deserve this much in return’.”

There’s plenty more ground covered too in 50 minutes of conversation, so tune in on Soundcloud here, or if you prefer, Spotify here.

To tune in to the last episode with legendary bike designer Mike Burrows head here.