Interesting Trend at Pro's Closet

[Pegoready]

Are they growing too fast? I'm seeing some HURTING bikes on their site.

No bar tape, no chains sometimes. 40 million in VC funding and can't buy the workshop a spool of bulk chain and tape?

Terrible setups like their photographer has never seen a bike before. And they're asking a lot of money, telling me they paid dearly for these bikes.

I'm seeing these bikes pop up in my IG feed all day. Examples:

They want over $3000 for this Bianchi jalopy. OVER THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS. People sell amazingly well kept grail bikes here for $3000. Whoever sold this POS to TPC made out like a bandit. Based on the gap between the seat tube and the tire it looks like someone took a low end sport touring frame, gave it a nice paint job, threw on a non matching fork, and put an eTap group on it with some leftover race wheels. Is that a Mid Reach brake in the rear and a short reach brake in the front I see? Wow, what a clusterfook of a build:




No tape, awful bar position:



Angling the bars correctly would increase the appeal 50% with 10 seconds of work:



No chain, no tape, rats nest of cables:



No chain, no tape, front brake doesn't appear to be hooked up:



I have a feeling the quality of buying and inspections has dropped in favor of getting mass numbers up for sale for the suits.

[prototoast]

I guess the alternate theory is they can sell almost any bike at whatever price they list, so why bother cleaning them up?

[2000m2]

Interesting observation, not sure I would even post a bike on local Craigslist looking like that.

[Pegoready]

Originally Posted by prototoast

I guess the alternate theory is they can sell almost any bike at whatever price they list, so why bother cleaning them up?

True. Pride in your work maybe?

[RWL2222]

Sure enough. This doesn't look right but I quickly found the lightspeed https://www.theproscloset.com/produc...peed-classic-s

[Pegoready]

Originally Posted by RWL2222

Sure enough. This doesn't look right but I quickly found the lightspeed https://www.theproscloset.com/produc...peed-classic-s

Sure is a looker huh?

[AngryScientist]

my biggest irk at pros closet is that they can't be bothered to accurately measure frames. all they would need to do is build a simple jig to accurately and properly measure every frame before boxing it up.

i can look past missing chains and unwrapped bars, and i'm going to inspect and tune the bike when i get it anyway, so i dont care about hbar position, but the fundamental facts i need to know before i buy a used frame are what the dimensions are. in fact i have passed on a few bikes being sold there due to uncertainty of their measurements.

[EB]

This is a great call-out. Online consignment sites like TheRealReal have made a huge investment in quality control and authenticity verification processes, given how frequently they are targeted by fraudsters unloading counterfeit goods. Buyers looking for a discount on a Birkin bag or a Rolex are very concerned about being a victim of a counterfeit, so this is part of protecting their brand. These kind of sites, once they reach scale, are easy targets for fraud unless they have made major investments here.

Scale is hard. As TPC scales up, I wonder if they are already being deliberately targeted. If word gets out that they an easy mark, watch out.

[Pegoready]

I can do this forever but I'll stop here.

Over $1000 for a 15 year old rim brake Scott with Tiagra 9 speed triple?! No chain, cables loose on the down tube, hoods flipped open (2 seconds to fix this folks). Imagine the poor person buying this from the world's premier used bike seller.

https://www.theproscloset.com/produc...speedster-40-m



The kicker is the crank: vintage Suntour Superbe with later ultracheap stamped SR Suntour rings. Wow, this is some Bike Co-Op nonense:

[tctyres]

Someone posted the walk through of their new space recently.

The photographer has a room on his own. I don't know the situation, but my guess is that to keep him busy, they put stuff on his list that wasn't done by the tuners & unpackers.

Their shop is amazing, and they are selling everything they get.


I agree with Angryscientist that they need to measure better.

[eippo1]

If they aren't willing to do a quick mechanic run through of a cheap beater bike, I'd never want to buy a $7k mtb through them.

[Jeckel30]

I am pretty sure they are buying mostly everything at this point to corner the market, become the biggest choice in the online game, and discourage competition. Growth and becoming the biggest player in the market is preferred over profit at this point. Unfortunately that growth comes at an expense and the “Pro” who liked to shop there will not necessarily be their primary customer anymore.

[EB]

The first fraudster that figures out that TPC will buy a fake Pinarello from them and sell it as a real one will make bank.

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by Pegoready

True. Pride in your work maybe?

Fair enough. Everyone once in a while TPC seems to have some good deals, but you're right, even if they sell, these are some real stinkers.

[KJMUNC]

I also know of at least one instance where a bike was listed here, with clear reference to prior carbon repair, but then shows up on TPC with no mention of any prior carbon repair and with a +30% price increase. Maybe they weren't told of it by the seller, but I doubt it given how open he was when listing here.

Then seem to generally not do a great job disclosing condition issues. Heck, I sold them a Pinarello and clearly stated all the paint dings, chips, etc, and NONE of those areas made it into their pictures, much less the description. Someone eventually bought it for WAAAAY more than they paid me, and if I was that buyer I'd have been furious to find those undisclosed issues.