[TheThinkTank] Random Thought: Creating a bicycle parts/tools distributor for Community Bike Shops.

[Stuart O Anderson]

At Free Ride we have a purchasing policy that directs us to buy local,
union, and sustainable products when they are available.  If there
were a distributor that could source parts the best complied with this
policy I think we'd definitely be interested.

Of course, this would be a huge undertaking for the person(s) that
wanted to do it.  I imagine one has to order in very large quantities
from manufacturers to be able to offer wholesale prices comparable to
other distributors, and that the amount of cash tied up in stock at
any given time is rather signficant.  Having to rent or maintain a
warehouse on top of that means that there's a minimum rate of
consumption a distributor would need to maintain to avoid losing
money.  That rate is going to depend on the size of the niche market
for community bike shops, and the assumption that other distributors
wont alter their own policies to capture that market - it's not clear
to me that there is enough demand, even combining all the major
community bike shops into a single bloc, to solely support a single
distribution operation.  But that's just a guess and a real answer
would require market research on the part of interested parties.

It seems to me that QBP supplies most of the CBS's right now.  Maybe
someone should approach them about identifying and stocking products
that conform to our purchasing policies (i.e. green/fair trade/us
made/union made/etc icons in the catalog) and ask about discounts for
non-profits promiting bicycle use?  I'd think the best way for that to
happen would be for several shops to work together to create a request
that could be delivered on all our behalfs.  Does this interest anyone
- I'd be willing to help with such a project.

Stuart