Retail Therapy: Fresno businesses add bike trade-ins and tuxedo rentals

You can trade in a car, but a bike?

Yup, as part of a new pilot program Steven’s Bicycles stores in Fresno and Clovis are accepting used bikes in exchange for store credit to buy new ones.

It’s a partnership with BicycleBlueBook.com – sort of a bike version of Kelley Blue Book, the site that helps car owners determine how much their used cars are worth.

It only applies to bikes from year 2000 or newer.

Here’s how it works: Bring your bike into either Steven’s location – at Willow and Nees avenues in Clovis or 4045 W. Figarden Dr. in Fresno.

Inspectors will check it out, looking for dents, scratches, how well various components are working, etc. It will get a rating from “like new” to “fair.” They plug the information into a computer and it spits out a trade-in value.

This can be done with customized bikes, too.

That store credit – which can range from very small amounts to thousands – is designed to be used toward a new bike.

Customers must show a driver’s license and have a fingerprint taken so the store can avoid taking stolen bikes.

For Steven’s, the program solves a barrier to sales, says manager of the Clovis store Devin Bovee.

“We have many customers that say I can’t buy a new one until I sell this one,” he says.

Steven’s then ships the bikes to BicycleBlueBook.com, which resells them in its online marketplace.

The site also lets customers determine the value of their bike if they want to sell it privately.

LBD Tuxedos

Locally owned Little Black Dress Boutique has opened a tux shop.

The dress shop at the southwest corner of Bullard and West avenues has been selling prom and formal dresses for nearly four years.

Now it’s catering to the fellas, too.

A few doors down from the dress shop is LBD Tuxedos, offering sales and rental of tuxes from brands such as Calvin Klein, Michael Kors and others.

So when young women buy a dress for a dance, a store employee gives her a card with the exact matching colors for her date’s tie, vest and pocket square. This is important because there’s not just a handful of colors to choose from, but 45 of them – including three shades of navy, says owner Keri Frazier.

The customers can give the card to their dates with the info for LBD Tuxedos on it, or come with them to pick out a tux .

“It’s just a natural progression for my store,” Frazier says.

LBD Tuxedos also does tuxes for weddings and other occasions.

The dress side of Little Black Dress Boutique is growing every year. If all goes well with the tux shop, Frazier plans to move the dress shop so the two shops are in the same space this summer.

The tux operation came about when a representative from Jim’s Formalwear – the country’s largest provider of tux and suit rentals – came to Frazier. The Illinois-based company has a distribution center in Visalia.

This story was originally published January 9, 2016 at 4:00 AM with the headline "Retail Therapy: Fresno businesses add bike trade-ins and tuxedo rentals."