Mudhunny spotted an ad in Endurance magazine for North Carolina’s first Trek concept store in Raleigh and since the trails were wet Saturday we decided to check it out. Before heading out we searched the Google for directions and came across the store website which left us a bit underwhelmed. The site looked like some bad B2B site or at the very least a rip off of the OSCommerce default web store template – but you can’t always judge a business by its website.
The store is located in a pretty non-descript suburban shopping center far outside town (see photo below) and from the outside we could tell our idea of “concept store” was way off. I mean, to me a concept store should be all about the brand and it should be flashy and hip and innovative in some way. This looked like a newish mom and pop bike store that would probably be out of business in 6 months or so (not unlike alot of bike shops).
Inside we saw some pretty flashy Trek bikes along with some other brands we didn’t expect to see (like Intense and LeMond). The store wasn’t all Trek as they carried plenty of Pearl Izumi clothes, Wrench Force tools, and Crank Brothers pedals. The size and layout really reminded us of an understocked Performance Bike store and the Trek branding was pretty crappy. Instead of huge wall-size lifestyle photos there were dorm-room style posters and a lone flat screen television looping some boring cycling video. I don’t even remember any music playing in the store.
Merchandising wasn’t impressive and the endcap display bikes in the mountain bike section were some kind of flat bar road or triathalon bikes with slick, skinny tires. Signs printed on 8.5×11 inch white copier paper explained in Comic Sans font what a Trek Elite 9.9 mountain bike is all about. “The name says it all” the poster explained – what the hell does that mean? It weighs 9.9 pounds? It goes 9.9 mph?
We did see a few cool bikes there that most bike shops probably wouldn’t carry including the Trek 69er. I had seen these online but wasn’t sure what 69er meant (69 inch wheels?). Seeing the bike in person made things clear though – it has a 29 inch wheel on the front and a standard 26 inch wheel in the back (26 & 29 -> 69). No fancy poster to explain why this was a good idea and at more than $2,000 this single speed seemed a bit out of most people’s price range. It seemed especially out of place given the fact the store also sells $30 plastic tricycles.
Anyway, as you can tell we were completely unimpressed with Trek’s concept of a bike store but we did come out with some ideas of our own about what Trek could have done. I also did some research about the Trek concept store idea and I’ll be presenting a business perspective in a subsequent blog post so stay tuned. If there’s a Trek concept store in your area don’t get your hopes up – just head over to your local Trek dealer instead.
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May 10, 2007