FEATURE
However you look at it, trade-in price conversations can be disappointing, so naturally, salespeople in stores need an incentive to do it and do it well. This process will help them make new sales, however. If an end-user wants to sell a bike, they can now use a local store as a point of exchange. Here, Cycle Exchange will provide a price, which is an offer plus 10% for the participating dealer. The price is automated initially. If a customer does trade in via their local dealer, that dealer takes 10% of whatever we are buying. It’s up to the dealer to decide whether to use that margin on developing a brand new bike sale, or just keep the cut.” If the terms are agreeable, the bike dealer will go on to do a basic check to ensure the trade-in is not damaged. Generally, Cycle Exchange buys premium bicycles, which means buying carbon. It’s therefore key that the structure is not damaged. Once a 15-minute assessment is complete, the shop will take the bike in and hold it for Cycle Exchange, who will pay within a set timeframe while organising the final collection. The shop is always paid directly. To achieve what Cycle Exchange is now capable of takes data, ten years of it, we’re told. Where previously a developer would have spent days on end tuning algorithms to deliver market-appropriate pricing instantly, now the use of AI tools has drastically sped up the firm’s ability to assess market stock levels, model year pricing, how many have sold before, how
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long it took to make a sale, and the margin able to be made. With algorithm-driven results, Cycle Exchange now has a pricing tool that quickly delivers a fair value range in which to move business along faster.
The transformation to this true tech-platform shape
apparently was a Covid-era epiphany. Matt says, ‘When our trading environment suddenly changed, it made us realise that although we were online, we were not yet an e-commerce business. That period after covid shaped our transformation. We invested in digital marketing, specialist agents and the distribution network’s functionality.’ Realising that the business needed to grow beyond what Matt described as a Kingston +10-mile radius, the realisation quickly came that this had to become a specialist service and could not simply be managed by a Parcel Force or FedEx. With that in mind, Cycle Exchange now works with specialist cycle courier Cycling Logistics. After all, the price range now put through the online shop window spans £500 through to a lofty £10,000.
Though the platform is brand agnostic, we’re told that the
average ticket price works out between £2,500 and £3,000 for resale items. These are heavily tilted to road and gravel bikes at present, with some mountain bikes sold too. For now, given the added complexity of a professional assessment and the extra moving parts and quality guarantees on things like
May 2026 | 49
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