Hey Folks, Quick couple of questions to those who break up their workshop hours and have sales-only hours/days. How does that work for you? How do your users / volunteers feel about it? What are you selling? Any "wow, we're surprised at how well Widget X sells!" items you'd recommend? Do you get a lot of people coming in hoping to fix "just this one thing?" during the sales-only time? This is a main concern of mine. Thanks, Clifford -- B!KE: The Peterborough Community Bike Shop 336 Rubidge St, Peterborough ON communitybikeshop.org (705) 775-7227
We don't have sale-only hours, but we are sometimes at the shop when we're open, and if people can be self-contained and we feel like it, we often let them in to fix "just this one thing." but we make it clear that the shop isn't usually available right then and that we're making a special exception for them. and they are usually appreciative, and sometimes we have good conversation, too, because it's more one-on-one and they're more self-sufficient. in my experience. but we have that luxury. i'm sure it's different if you're actively trying to do other open-to-public things with the shop space.
If you need a hard-and-fast rule, people will get used to it, and most of them will eventually understand. Another potential solution would be to have one "emergency stand" available for "exceptional circumstances," like if they wouldn't be able to get home without walking for miles otherwise.
On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 10:53 AM, Clifford McCarten < director@communitybikeshop.org> wrote:
When we started opening on Saturdays it was mainly to sell bikes and
hopefully reduce the demand for this on our evening shifts. And at the
same time get a few bikes ready to roll as time permitted.
But since we were only going to have one staffer it was decided that
anyone wanting to work on their bike had to be able to do so
unassisted. This is mentioned on our website and a sign is put at the
door, and it has worked out fairly well. Staff still have to explain
to folks that we're not a regular bike shop ("we don't fix bikes for
people") so also having to tell them to come back in the evenings for
assistance is no big deal. But we have had to be hard and fast with
our rules, which of course not everyone appreciates, and I've also had
to remind volunteers who are in working on our bikes not to get sucked
into helping folks with theirs.
Mark Rehder - Coordinator re-Cycles Community Bike Shop http://re-cycles.ca
On 9-Aug-11, at 6:45 PM, Angel York wrote:
At SLO Bike Kitchen (San Luis Obispo, CA), we do this similarly. When it's not our published hours, we often let people in. Sometimes it is so they can look for something, some people can do it themselves, sometimes the person who opened the door doesn't mind helping just one person. Usually we point out that it's outside of normal hours, which as Angel said, is important so people understand that we're being nice. I usually also take the opportunity to point out that we're volunteers, are a non-profit, etc. The stranded bike tourer always gets our attention though. ;)
Similar to what Mark just said about Saturdays - we decided to make Saturday (which is not a regular open day) a sort of in-service day where we work on our internal tasks - in particular fixing up partially working bikes which people have donated. We found that there was no way to get that kind of work done during regular hours because it's always busy. Also, this allows us to do quality skill building for our volunteers.
Back on topic - at SLO BIke Kitchen we've never really discussed having a sale-only time. I think because we focus on bike education and sales aren't education. On top of that, we don't have a surplus of volunteers, so it's not where we'd want to put our resources. If you have volunteers available though, it's a really excellent time to just talk to people who come in the door - tell them what you're about, connect them with local resources, as well as make some income for your collective.
Brian SLO Bike Kitchen
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 16:45, Angel York aniola@gmail.com wrote:
participants (4)
-
Angel York -
Brian (SLO Bike Kitchen) -
Clifford McCarten -
Mark Rehder