I broke my leg in a snow skiing accident when I was 15 years old. This was in 1969. While sitting around the house I found out about the Herter’s catalog. I have no idea how I was able to get my hands on one, but I would thumb through every page and imagine what I might order. At the back of the book, there was a table where I could pencil in the item description, item quantity, item price, and total price. Then I could tear the page out of the book, fold it to fit in an envelope, along with a check for payment, and send it into the ether. Some time later, a package would arrive.
At the time, I was fascinated by tying flies for fishing. I’m not even sure I had ever fished with a fly rod before then. Herter’s had everything: grizzly hackle, peacock herl, vices, chenille, glue, tying thread, deer hair, turkey wings.
It was the mystery that fascinated me. The words and the materials seemed as exotic, to a Montana boy, as did Minnesota.
Obviously, I sent an order for everything I could possibly need in order to tie flies. With a little practice, I was able to convince a fly fishing shop in Montana to contract me to tie flies for sale in their store. I tied hundreds of “Joe’s Hoppers” for them. How they were able to sell them was not my problem.
Now, in 2024, when I want to buy something, I just open up my little TV monitor (which folds up to the size of a food chopping block, and which magically connects to the ether) look at every angle of every item I am interested in, tell the TV monitor to charge my bank account (don’t worry about it) for the item(s). From then on, I am able to track my order and know exactly where it is and when it will arrive. Fucking amazing. Almost always, the items show up as predicted. Fucking amazing.
Any business selling a commodity product needs a robust, easy to use, website with a shopping cart function. This brings me to the reason for this post. From 2004 to 2017 we owned specialty retail bicycle shops. More specifically, one from 2004 to 2010, and then another one from 2010 to 2017. The first shop failed spectacularly. I mean super-nova spectacular. Part of the reason was my ineptitude at working in retail. The other part is that W., the worst president in my lifetime, presided over the global economic meltdown of 2008. Because he was, and is, dumb as a barrel of Texas oil.
The bike, so called, “industry” hated the idea of selling on line. There was a strong backlash about selling anything related to bicycling on the interwebs. All of the wholesale distributors of bikes and bike accessories forbade selling on the internet. They would also not do business with you if you did not have a storefront.
Bike Touring News was born out of frustration and desperation. Frustration that the bike industry would not accept that people actually bought things online. Desperation came from desperation.
The business model was to offer products not available on the local, racer-centric scene. Another essential part of the model was to educate consumers about how they might use what we sold.
When shopping online for products not available in the local market we look for an easy to use website, with informative content, and with a simple and secure checkout.
https://www.concretecamouflage.com/pd-sealing-with-water-base-sealer.cfm this is how not to do it.
https://www.rockfordchimneysupply.com/blogs/articles-info-do-it-yourself-contractor-chimney-info this is how to do it.