November 2014
Combatting The Decline In Bike Shop Traffic
In his excellent blog post, "Will Bike Shops Serve the Changing Market?", NBDA executive director Fred Clements notes, "new research shows that consumer traffic at bike shops is declining across the board."  The data from the Gluskin Townley Group's 2014 American Bicyclist Study backs that up:
- The percentage of bike owners visiting a bike shop at least once fell from 51% in 2011 to 41% in 2013.
- The average number of visits fell from 3.98 in 2011 to 2.86 in 2013. 
While these stats and others in the study show some disturbing trends, Fred identifies several underserved market segments trending upward (such as Gen X & Y females, African-Americans, and Hispanics) that represent significant opportunities for bike shops that are willing to cultivate and serve them, and we couldn't agree more.  The challenge for retailers will be attracting new customers in these growing segments, particularly for stores with limited time and resources.  
A More Immediate Solution
For stores that need to deal with traffic issues now, we see a more immediate opportunity - increasing the visits of your existing customers (no matter what demographic they fall under).  Top-performing retailers recognize that the key to driving consistent traffic is targeting customers who recently purchased from them.  Some examples:
1. Customers who buy a bike but leave without accessories or clothing.  Send them a thank you with clothing and accessory offers.
2. Customers who recently had service work done.  Ask them in an email for feedback on their service experience and include some limited time offers. 
3. Customers who need to get that bike they purchased from you tuned up.  Send them a tune-up reminder near the anniversary of their bike purchase.   
Many quality retailers are also running rewards programs, which can be another effective way to drive repeat visits and business. 
Where Do I Start?
With everything else you have going on in your busy days, this level of customer follow-up can seem daunting - unless you have a mechanism that will execute this for you in a timely and efficient manner. 

A transaction-based follow-up solution that works with your POS system is the key to pulling this off.  Some other factors you should consider if you're planning to search for a follow-up/loyalty program this off-season:
- Is the solution automated, from data-in to communications-out?
- What are the upfront and monthly maintainence costs?
- Can you set up a rewards program?
- How quick is set-up?
Ride Club Makes It Easy
Members of The Bike Cooperative have had great success utilizing our Ride Club customer follow-up program, which sends out automated, transaction-based email and direct mail to customers on their behalf
With a built-in rewards program, integrations with 9 different POS systems and no set-up or maintenance costs, Ride Club is saving retailers significant time and money. It's also getting results: 
“We are getting an amazing response from the Ride Club emails - a TON of people are coming in with their email coupons!" 
- Vanessa McCracken
  Sunnyside Bicycles (Fresno, CA)
The Bike Cooperative is a member-owned cooperative with a mission of improving the profitability of independent bike retailers, providing members with exclusive product specials and rebates, consumer financing and credit card processing programs, comprehensive advertising services, and training in management and sales. For information on becoming a Bike Co-op member:
670 N. Commercial St. 3rd Floor | Manchester, NH 03101 US
Click here to unsubscribe.
Subscribe to our email list.