Yesterday I shared how Trump’s tariff policies are impacting a Portland-based bike company that imports its apparel and bicycles from China and other markets overseas. But what about local bike shops? For that perspective I called Brad Parker, owner of Metropolis Cycles on North Williams Avenue.
Here’s a slightly edited version of our conversation:
How has all the Trump tariff news impacted your business so far?
“So far, we’ve noticed distributors and manufacturers are telling us prices will increase. For instance, we just got an email a few weeks ago from the company that owns the Blackburn tools and racks, telling us that there is going to be a price increase at the beginning of this month. And our QBP [Quality Bicycle Products, a major distributor] rep did tell us that steel is going to go up.
One of the main things in the bike industry that is steel and important is chains and cassettes. So we have already just started [preparing for Trump uncertainty]. I went into my sales history and tried to do estimates of how many chains we sold last year, and we’re trying to purchase those now for the entire year to help us survive. So those are the main things that we have done so far to get us through these price increases that are coming.”
Have you seen any reaction from customers yet? Are people panic-buying bikes or anything like that?
“That’s a good question. It’s been a really weird year for us so far with bike sales. Right after the election and right after the inauguration, we sold a lot of bikes. It was almost like, for a lot of people, when they get depressed with stuff, they’ll go and they’ll buy something to make them feel better. And then February and March, we sold almost no bikes. It was really weird.”
So people aren’t coming in asking for used bikes? Or wanting to buy before tariffs kick in?
“We had a few customers purchase e-bikes in January who were like, ‘Hey, I want to get these before tariffs start hitting.’ I think we sold three bikes like that and we usually sell one e-bike every three months, so it’s kind of weird to sell three in January.”
You don’t seem very distressed. Are you worried that high prices and uncertainty will send a chill through costumers and they’ll stop coming through the door? How would higher prices impact your business?
“I don’t know about saying I’m not distressed. This keeps me up quite a bit every night, but it is what it is. It’s something that I personally can’t control.
We do a lot of tune-ups and service, and, you know, that’s where we’re going to have to increase our prices. We don’t really make too much money, so that means we have to push the price onto the consumer. The margins in the bike industry have shrunk significantly in the last 10 years. Either bike shops go out of business, or they have to push those costs onto the consumer. Will that affect how many people are coming in the door? Absolutely.
The other thing too is when things get more expensive, people go to bikes. When gas has gone up, or it’s hard to get a car, we’ve noticed a little bit of uptick of people pulling that bike out of the garage and relying on that more. We’re hopefully going to get a little bit of that to help us with the people that are maybe not biking because they can’t afford that new chain.
I’m pre-buying a year’s worth of chains and I’m going to keep that inventory up. So if I sell a chain right now, and I look and that price was still the old price, I’m going to keep ordering that. So when those tariffs do happen. I’m not going to, like, increase the price of my chain to be a dick. You know? I’m doing this to help my customers out. And when those chains run out and I have to buy expensive ones, that’s when I’m going to start increasing my prices.”
You’ve said you’re ordering more chains. But isn’t cash-flow a concern?
“The thing that’s hard is, you know, this is spring. This is when I have to pay all my manufacturers for all these bikes that I’ve bought. A lot of bikes come out in the fall, and manufacturers know that bike shops need to save their money to get through the winter. And so they’ll be like, ‘You got to pay us in the spring,’ and that’s right now. So I don’t have a lot of discretionary income. And the other thing too is the amount of new bikes we have in our bike shop is about twice as much as we had last year at this time. And it’s because we’ve been talking about these tariffs for a bit. And as soon as Trump got elected, I pre-booked up all these bikes. So I have to pay for them now. Ideally I would buy pallets of cassettes and pallets of other items. So would other bike shops. But they can’t, because they’re in the same boat I am in with owing all this other stuff like taxes, workers comp bill, all that stuff is due in April, you know?”
Anything else you want to share about all this?
“The whole bike industry is kind of like in this, ‘What do we do? We’re just gonna’ have to figure it out as we go,’ moment and that’s kind of where we’re at as well. We don’t know what’s gonna’ happen or what these costs are going to be. Everything’s gone up in price since I’ve been owner of the bike shop. One of the rear racks we used to sell was $45 and within five years, it’s now $75 for the same exact rack.
You know, you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do. You got to get up in the morning and just see what’s happening that day.”
