RETAILERS
“There’s people just buying bikes one off, but there’s a lot of people who continue to come back to us,” said Connelley. “There’s quite a few that buy multiple times a year and swap out. We do a buy back guarantee so that works really well for some people who don’t like the hassle of buying and selling themselves.”
Although Cycle Exchange has faced similar challenges to many independent businesses in the bike industry, it has weathered the storm and is on track to achieve growth in the region of 20% again this year “High-end road has generally stayed quite resilient,” said Connelley.
“I don’t think it was as oversupplied as some of the other
“Secondhand wasn’t so much of a thing then so it was just to give customers that assurance.
“The shop was actually really important as a starting point for us.”
As the business continued to expand, Connelley decided
to search for new premises and found the long-term home of Cycle Exchange in July 2019. “We were looking to move for quite a while but we wanted
to stay in the area,” said Connelley. “It also had to be cost effective because margins on bikes can be a challenge in the best of times and with secondhand, it requires even more discipline.
“Covid was a bit scary because we’d just made quite a large investment in this place so it was a bit of a concern when I was sitting in here on my own with the shutters closed.” As everyone in the industry is familiar with, the end of April 2020 brought people flooding to bike shops as people sought to make the most of outdoor activities. “We haven’t really looked back since then,” said Connelley. “We’ve done about 40% growth a year since 2018, so not
rocket ship growth but a solid steady growth without giving any equity away as well. “There was a little bit of a dip at the end of last year when everyone started dumping stock, but it only lasted for a month or so.” Focusing on high end road, and particularly secondhand, along with the reuse and recycle aspects of the businesses has kept Cycle Exchange at the forefront of people’s minds. A key part of the businesses relationship with its customers is its newsletter which goes out to around 40,000 people.
20 | July 2023
www.bikebiz.com
sectors, and it’s also traditionally a more affluent customer. We’re also still heavily skewed towards Greater London which generally has more disposable income for that type of purchase.
“So we’ve been somewhat lucky that the niche that we’re in has been less impacted than others.”
Partnership power CE Commercial is Cycle Exchange’s partnership program with manufacturers, distributors, retailers, professional and semi-professional race teams, and tour and hire companies.
This sees the company offer stock purchasing, helpful
terms, and shipping and distribution assistance. It has stepped up recently with a new warehouse space in Esher. “We’ve got quite a significant warehouse operation now which has given us the capability to grow more,” said Connelley. “We’re doing more with manufacturers. Not only with just trading with their customers but also stock they want
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