There are convenience stores everywhere, but are there other retail sectors where such relative proximity can allow all to thrive?
How many shops selling the same thing can you have in a limited area?
If supermarkets are anything to go by, a lot. There are convenience stores on every corner. But move beyond ‘food for today’ and are there any other retail sectors that do the same?
The area immediately to the north and east of Oxford Circus might seem to indicate that the answer is yes.
Starting on Mortimer Street, there’s the Evans Cycles flagship, which is mostly underground and providing wallets are deepish, has a wide range of branded bicycles.
A couple of streets away Halfords has just opened a Cycle Republic aimed at anybody who likes cycling with a major push on its Boardman range.
This one is also underground and does bear pretty close comparison with Evans, although it is likely to find favour with those for whom the bottom line matters.
For something a little more specialist, there is a Biomega store. This is an emporium stocking bikes from a Danish producer that uses designers from beyond the cycling world to create models that are white and unusual looking.
A little further along Great Portland Street is Velorution, a store for those who like ‘e-bikes’ (electric power-assisted bikes), among other things, and the origin of Biomega in the UK.
And if all of this is not enough, there’s a CycleSurgery bike shop on the same thoroughfare.
A niche for each
There are others in the locality and it is hard not to wonder how they all prosper. Yet speak to any of them and it appears there is a niche for each, in spite of the fact that they all ply the same commodity.
The other point is that with the exception of the Biomega store, to the uninformed they all look broadly similar.
Are there really so many different parts of the cycling universe that they can support so many shops in such a modest area?
The answer seems again to be yes and speaking to the same stores, they will all tell you what makes them different from their rivals and why they can support a business in the Great Portland Street area.
The trick of making a bicycle store work, it would appear, is to have something that others have, but to have just enough difference to breed loyalty.
Simple when put like that, but there must be precious few other parts of retail that operate in this manner (fashion doesn’t count, by the way, the product differences are greater).
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