Bike House Lifestyle — one of two Bike House stores on either side of Stuart St — shut its doors on Saturday.
Bike House Sport co-owner Matt Dunstan said they had opened the lifestyle store, at 70 Stuart St, about two years ago following the sports store’s opening in 2011.
The lifestyle store sold urban, adventure, gravel and commuting styles of bikes — categories of which had grown over the years but had become tricky to display all in the one original store.
While it was received “quite positively” during a “massive” boom in the industry created by the Covid-19 pandemic, there had since been a lot of challenges, including rising costs, Mr Dunstan said.
Customers were also finding it tougher to buy expensive sporting goods given economic conditions, and their overall turnover had shrunk a little bit while operating costs had risen.
“We can see now that from one spot we can actually do all of it.
“We can make it a lot easier on ourselves and actually better for our customers by doing it all from one store.”
Mr Dunstan said that during the Covid-19 boom their turnover had actually been higher than it was with two stores, and so believed they could reach those levels again.
Cargo bikes in particular were a product that a few years ago they had not sold many of but were now selling quite a few.
Electric bikes had also grown “massively” since they first starting selling them about a decade ago, he said.
Moving back to a single store would also make it easier from a management perspective, with all staff being retained at the sports store on the other side of the road.
Staff had been consulted before the decision and everyone had largely thought it was the best idea, he said.
While there had been a bit of a drop in overall sales in the short term, Mr Dunstan said he believed in the long-term future of the business.
“It’s going to be challenging to display all the product, but you know, we’re just going to have to get a bit more creative.
“We’re confident that we can actually keep the sales at the same level, or ultimately grow them again.”
