BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Bike Rental Manager
For those not familiar, Bike Rental Manager is a provider of cloud-based software for bike rental shops. Formerly known as Bike Shop Manager, BRM underwent a re-branding exercise back in the autumn with a completely re-designed website, the new name reflecting its tightened focus solely on bike rental.
Many bike shops provide a bike rental offering, but it poses some unique challenges and opportunities that other parts of the business don’t have. For many shops, it provides a solid revenue backbone that supports other, perhaps more volatile, parts of the business while also generating valuable footfall. Bike Rental Manager has been designed exclusively to meet these challenges, and free up staff and management from the daily administration of bike rental.
A new online booking module is currently being rolled out now across existing and new clients. It integrates directly with existing client websites with just one line of HTML and takes bookings against live rental inventory.
Bike Rental Manager has now integrated with Paypal and WorldPay so that customers can arrive in store fully paid up and ready to take the bikes. BRM has also rolled out a new integrated support ticketing system and knowledge base meaning that BRM’s growing list of clients can often find questions to any answers instantly.
Future priorities for BRM include integration with third-party EPOS and payment systems.
Improving multi-store functionality and enhanced reporting and analysis tools are also mooted for the near future.
Last year Bike Rental Manager handled over £1 million of reservations, comprising over 56,000 individual bike rentals, and this is anticipated to nearly double in 2014. BRM is now being used in seven countries including USA, Canada, Australia and the UK.
contact@bikerentalmanager.com
+33 686 451 310
www.bikerentalmanager.com
Citrus-Lime
Citrus-Lime specialises in providing IBDs with ecommerce, EPOS and stock-control solutions that provide a competitive advantage and the infrastructure on which to build a successful business, delivering software systems that cut time spent at the keyboard and gets dealers back on the retail floor.
Citrus-Lime’s retail system and ‘Best Practice Training’ is geared towards efficiency and providing dealers with the tools needed to make effective management decisions.
The firm says: “Through discussions with our many customers we are acutely aware of the constant pressure to find ways of delivering additional value to customers. The discount culture emerged, however, not from the desire to deliver value but from some dealers looking make a quick quid. That’s not a sustainable business model for any retailer of premium goods.
“Using the Customer Rewards module you will deliver value by cultivating a fresh ‘customer loyalty’ culture. While Customer Rewards is a promotional discounting feature, the discount is on future purchases, so your customers need to return to spend the points they’ve earned; securing future sales and building a relationship with them.
“All successful High Street stores offer some form of loyalty programme and Citrus-Lime is bringing that same competitive edge to you. We provide a dedicated member of the Citrus-Lime team – Lewis Sherratt – to ensure that you make the most of the Customer Rewards feature.
“We have also expanded the Retail Support Team to include Patrick Adamson and Kieran Smolka. Pat has worked in cycle retail for many years and is the advocate for our Supplier Integration Module. Kieran, being a trained bike mechanic, has responsibility for developing the Workshop Module. Both provide first-rate Retail Support and can relate to the issues you face daily; bridging the gap between our Technical Support Team and our customers.
“We offer a more feature-rich ecommerce solution, in Citrus-Store, than ever before but we are still focused on helping our customer spend money on things that drive online success in a sustainable, profitable manner. For example, if you are selling bikes and high-value items online, we recommend you consider our Click & Collect feature. Typically the domain of the High Street retailer and supermarkets, Click & Collect allows your customers to buy online and have the things they’ve purchased set aside for collection from your store at a later point in time. Your ability to hand control to your customer over the ‘where and when’ is a fantastic boon to your service standards.
“Our online finance calculator is another way to secure a customer and sale that you may have missed as it provides a way for your customers to take control of how they are going to pay for the goods. Our online finance integration approves the application during the checkout process which means convenience to the customer and round-the-clock administration of the process handled automatically. The final service we offer today is our managed Google Product Listing Adverts (Google PLA) service. The Citrus-Lime Managed PLA Service means that we commit resource from our dedicated Web Marketing Team to your project and seek to ensure that your budget is well spent and the return on investment is under a watchful eye. Our proven, on-going approach to this service is yet another compelling reason to work in partnership with the hard-working Citrus-Lime team.”
01229 588 628
www.citruslime.com
Cybertill
Today’s cycle EPOS systems need to do more than just manage stock, it needs to be multi-channel, it should be able to manage loyalty programmes, integrate with ecommerce sites, and be accessible from any location, not just in store. Handily, Cybertill does all this and more. Cybertill is web-based which makes it easy for cycle retailers to access it from any location, in the back office, at home, at trade shows, or anywhere. Famously, one Cybertill cycle customer uses an iPad to manage their shop in London when they are training in Lanzarote, we’re told.
Cybertill’s angle is that with more consumers buying bikes and accessories online, cycle retailers need a system that can manage their store and ecommerce site as one – otherwise cycle shops are investing ‘twice’ – not only can this be double the cost but also double the time.
Cybertill’s multi-channel system gives cycle retailers a single view of customers, inventory and orders, all in real time. This means cycle retailers don’t have to ‘ring fence’ stock for their store or ecommerce site and it can be sold across all sales channels. And as stock levels are live, accurate and visible customers can place orders with confidence online or in store. What’s more, the customer can choose to ‘reserve and collect’ or ‘click and collect’.
While the company operates in a number of sectors, Cybertill has specific modules designed solely for the bicycle industry, such as workshop for servicing bikes. With over 170 client locations, Cybertill is well ‘road-tested’ within the bicycle industry.
www.cybertill.co.uk
0800 030 4432
enquiries@cybertill.co.uk
Evopos
Evopos UK has just released version six of its all-in-one cycle dealer solution. Aiming to combine the reliability of the desktop, the accessibility of the web and convenience of the mobile, the newly updated software boasts upgrades like quick and easy-to-use POS, stock control, workshop organiser, hires accounts and state of the art automated SMS and emailing marketing. Other upgrades include integration to eBay and e-commerce sites, mobile access; and plenty of features that can make a dealer more efficient and profitable.
Also new this year is a Procedures system to make it easier for retailers to control how they want everything done in their business, improved ‘Product Actions’ which combine Upsell prompts, Kits, Related products, Serial No prompting, Warranty variations etc., improved SMS / email marketing and more e-commerce options.
Evopos UK MD Denis Bullen explains: “Everything about a cycle or customer is tracked. We know what cycle dealers need, for example it is easy to create new stock items on the fly so if you sell a bike with say a different saddle you can sell it and put the original one into stock without coming out of the sale.
“Evopos is a low cost way to help make your business more controllable and profitable. The basic version is free but cycles dealers normally take advantage of the advanced modules which really help shops buzz. The advanced modules can be turned on or off as needed, there is no contract and you only pay a small monthly fee which includes support and program updates.”
Crazy Horse Bike Workshop has been working with Evopos: “We’ve been using the system for more than a year and we’re able to see much more clearly where we were and where we are today. We’re now able to keep a record of our clients, their bikes, what we’ve done and when we’ve done it.”
www.evopos.com
01202 875 996
