When I’m visiting such stores, I find it best not to disclose the fact that I have some knowledge of riding gear and the riding gear industry.
BHPian neil.jericho recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
While checking out track use helmets in Bangalore, I visited 3 riding gear stores in the HSR layout. Since we usually post about the products in depth and not the pre-sale experiences, it feels like a good time to share my thoughts on the 3 stores. When I’m visiting such stores for the first time, I find it best not to disclose the fact that I have some knowledge of riding gear and the riding gear industry, as a whole. This approach gives me a fair perspective on how the store employees deal with walk-in customers.
Moto ProGear
The sole store employee/manager was knowledgeable about the helmets I was looking at. He was able to answer all my questions on the products, their availability, spare parts pricing etc.
Overall, this was easily the best experience of the three.
Powersports International
There were a few other customers that the staff were dealing with. Nobody seemed interested in dealing with a customer who was keen to pick up the most expensive product in their showroom. But, in all fairness to the staff, the other customers needed help in picking out the right colours/sizes of products and were being well attended to.
Overall, a fair experience, which on another day would likely have been a good store experience.
Gear n Ride
Ufff, where do I start? From top to bottom, nobody seemed to know anything about riding gear. I had to point out and pick out the right helmets from the rack because the staff had no clue about what constituted a track-use helmet, even after making phone calls to find out. They claimed that an LS2 track use helmet and another LS2 sports touring helmet were the same product, when they had different vents, different build elements and one came with a drop-down sun visor When another potential customer questioned them on a popular Indian brand that they do not stock, the owner/store manager claimed that the company only sells riding jackets with foam inserts and many customers have returned their jackets due to crumbling armour. Now, I’m not a fan of many of the Indian riding gear brands (for reasons that I have listed on this thread, in the past) but these preposterous claims seemed to be a clear deviation from reality. The pushy sales responses to several other customer queries ranged from baffling to head-scratching to making up on the fly in the hope that the customer doesn’t know a thing. I left the store shaking my head in amazement.
If you know what you want to buy and just need to pick up the product from the nearest riding gear shop that stocks your size, you should consider visiting the store. But if you need to learn about what’s available or understand which products best suit your requirements, I strongly suggest you avoid Gear n Ride. Such riders really ought to visit other riding gear stores which have knowledgeable staff.
Overall, two thumbs down.
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