MEMPHIS, Tenn. (BRAIN) — Clark Butcher, owner of neighboring Memphis shops Victory Bicycle Studio and Pedaltown Bicycles, is removing the wall between the two stores and combining them under the Victory name.
Originally a high-end road boutique, Victory opened in 2010 and has operated in its current 2,500-square-foot space since fall 2011. Butcher opened Pedaltown Bicycles, focused on entry-level bicycles and casual cyclists, next door in 2017.
“Pedaltown was doing great, but Victory’s just going nuts. It just makes total sense,” said Butcher, a former member of Bicycle Retailer’s State of Retail retailer panel.
Once construction is complete, Victory Bicycle Studio will occupy 4,700 square feet of retail space. The change will allow Butcher to hold more spin classes, clinics and special events — an aspect of his shop that has grown rapidly with Victory’s shift of focus toward customer engagement and experience in recent years, Butcher noted.
“Once we got away from being so sales focused and just focused on the customer, our training groups, spin classes and clinics have just taken off. And with that it’s driven sales, and we just have to make sure we keep up with it and stay focused on that. We’re not necessarily growing in terms of more bikes on the floor. However, that will definitely happen. It’s just not the core focus,” he said.
Pedaltown is liquidating its inventory, and Butcher plans to focus his kids, family and recreational business on higher-price-point bikes.
“Folks were coming to us for the experience and the brand, and such a small number cared about the price. I started looking at it and saw that we can sell nicer kids bikes, we can sell nicer hybrids, and let’s just dump the rest of it. That volume model is just exhausting. You gotta sell a lot of $250 bikes to make money, whereas we’re having a blast selling high-end carbon bikes and everything on the Victory side. We can expand that now and have more to offer,” he said.
“If I can expand my spin classes and clinics and focus on that, the sales will come with it. Ever since I changed the focus to the customer and not on the products, business has gone great,” Butcher added.
Victory carries bikes from Cervélo, Scott, Felt, Pinarello, Parlee, BMC, Moots, Kona and 3T.
