Art’s Cyclery: Retail Store and Web/Mail Order “Behind-the-Scenes”
Mtbr recently stopped by to visit with the guys from Art’s Cyclery. Art’s has been a supporter of Mtbr for some time and you may see us running contests and sale banners for them. They are located in San Luis Obispo, CA on the central coast of California with some prime mountain biking trails in the vicinity!
The original Art’s Cyclery started way back in 1982 as a small shop in Los Osos, CA and yes, it was started by a guy named Art. Then, Art’s Cyclery moved to a downtown SLO location for several years. San Luis Obispo is mostly known as a college town but it also has tons of great trails, mountains, beaches and scenery. A few years ago, Art’s Cyclery moved to their current location away from the downtown area but into a facility that is HUGE!
In 2008, Art’s teamed up with Sports Warehouse to increase their worldwide online business while still retaining a local shop. The partnership across retailers gives Art’s a huge boost in resources and keeps their distribution costs low since they share with the Tennis Warehouse, Running Warehouse and Tackle Warehouse. The building they are in is 100,000 square feet and they use a geothermal energy system that uses heat from the earth to assist in heating and cooling the building. Read more about how Art’s Goes Green here. The Sports Warehouse building houses the retail space, the warehouse area and also the operations and management offices.
Art’s Cyclery now has two co-owners, Scott Smith and Eric Benson, who have been running things since 2002. Our hosts for the tour were Daniel Slusser who is the Web Content Manager and Tom Squire who is the Marketing guy. Let’s take a look inside.
Retail Store
The first section of the store you see is the retail floor space including the main front counter/check out area.
Art’s in-store inventory includes bikes and frames from brands like Specialized, Cannondale, Santa Cruz and they also sell Pivot, Intense and Orbea online.
Lezyne has their World Headquarters in SLO too, so it’s no suprise to see them well represented at Art’s.
Everything inside was in immaculate condition. This wall of wheels is located in the shop mechanics area.
The office for the Web Content and Web Orders is located just off the side of the retail shop space.
Be sure to check out the Photo Gallery at the end of this article to see many more photos of the shop, warehouse and offices.
Next Up: Behind the Scenes – the Warehouse
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