Bicycle guys Gdawg bike shop question

I opened my rental shop up on June 1 and have been slammed with people asking for inner tubes for their bicycles. I know nothing about this stuff. As a good citizen of the town, I think I'd like to have an assortment of tubes on hand to sell to people in need. Cheap stuff, not premium stuff.

Can anyone point me in the general direction of what a good source would be to get the tubes, and which sizes I should get to cover everyone? I'm OK with ordering a lot of 50 tubes or whatever it takes.

 

Isn’t this the type of research one might do before opening a business?

 

Nawww I dont sell stuff and dont want to sell anything or deal with pedal bikes. Just trying to help the locals out.

 

Cheap? Amazon business?

 

Unfortunately without a store front for bicycles you won't be able to get an account with QBP. JBI may be more lenient since you havd a touring company. I would talk to them. At this point a tube is a tube.
Most common sizes are
29x2.3
29x2.6
27.5x2.4

 

Buy some patch kits also. My nephew rides a lot and brags how fast he can patch a tire while out riding!

 

What kinds of bicycles are they asking about tubes for - kid's, beach cruisers, road, mountain? Multiple sizes in each of those categories. You start selling tubes, and people will start coming to you for all kinds of low-rent stuff.
You'll have Schrader vs Presta questions, patching questions, pressure questions.

If you still want to deal with the nonsense, tubes are tubes. A 29x2.3 will work just fine for a 29x3, no need to carry multiple 29" options. Same with all of them. Carry one size of 700c, 27.5 and 29. Well, the 27.5 tubes will just sit collecting dust and never go anywhere, so skip those. Plus you can shove a 29" tube in a 27.5" tire anyway. Then if you want to deal with the range of kid and consumer street bikes, you'll need 24" and 26" options. Get a box of them from alibaba.
Or give everyone a link to Amazon where they can order their own tubes.

 

Yup.

 

And get ready for all the "that tube you sold me was bad, it doesn't hold air" from the people that don't know how to change tubes.

Just don't do it.

 

Good point about assholes @brex.
Blow the tubes up and deflate them in front of them before a whiner can do that to you.

Edit: Because you live in a mountain community and getting stranded is not an option, explain to your customers how this is shop policy.

 

You can buy patch kits to sell, but I would not install them.
Stock some tire levers, I sell Perdro's, but use Park Tool's metal ones.
I suggest you open an account with JBI . There prices are the lowest I've found . They have warehouses near you in Cali & Washington .
As far as customers claiming you sold them a bad tube, it's very easy to show them the pinch hole they made .
Every once in a while I'll get a tube that is defective and splits along the seems .
Tube sizes, just keep track of what sizes you are getting requests from.
You can't stock every size.

 

Stocking patch kits sounds like a decent contingency plan to me. If I weren't a service business, I could see offering a few types of kits cuz, likely, I'd need to fix a tube or two as well.

 

Up selling would be a patch kit with tools and a hand pump.

"It'll save you when you're out of town"

 

sounds like July 3rd around here. The local shops sell about 2,000 tubes each. They even bring techs from other locations for a pit crew efficient operation.

 

Most tubes have a range they suit, e.g. 700x25-28, 27.5x2.1-2.35, 29x2.4-2.6. there's a bit of give but the probability of something going wrong increases at the outer limits. I have never heard anyone except the above claiming you could stock one of each wheel size and call it good. You'll have to compromise somewhere if you take this on. I'd be looking at what's the upside here, because it prob won't be $$$.

 

I guess you've never been in the Parts Department of a bicycle shop .

 

@motion
Might want to open an account quickly .
All these are $.99

https://www.hlc.bike/us/Catalog/Sea..._medium=email&utm_campaign=99_Evo_Tubes_Jun23

 

Thanks everyone and @G Dawg . ^^^ Those are great prices. I'll check into it.

 

I have, I think you misunderstood my post but that's ok.

 

Were you talking about the July 3rd post ? If so, I'm not sure what that's about maybe some special event .
That picture is only what I have in the shop. Probably have another 500 in my storage building