Motostrano - a store in the Bay Area closing !!

[JRA]

How do you end up with a million $$ in the bike shop business? Start with $2mil

 

[TomD]

They claimed they carried 300 ebikes

$300K = I lose $1K on 300 ebikes in stock. Sorry, just doesn't add up to me.

 

[FlatSix911]

Joe had a large showroom and inventory at his Redwood City store... and he had a lot of local tech customers with deep pockets.

Not sure what went wrong, but when it did it was a sudden and unexpected closing... I tried to help out and purchased some inventory.

 

[LimboJim]

I don't know how big of a business Motostrano ran but how do you get that deep in the red barring a coke or gambling problem?

Likely by taking a lot of bikes from distributors, factories etc. on promises to pay upon sale, then maybe not following through... I wonder how much of his inventory was on such consignment?

His offer to sell the biz to me for $300k was by phone, not in writing, so I'm reliant upon my somewhat addled memory. I do recall asking how much inventory he had on hand, and his response was along the lines of "a lot more than $300k!"

 

[onlineaddy]

But it sounds like he didn't own that inventory.