BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Green Commute Initiative (GCI) will apply a single commission charge across all new orders received from today, 29th March.
GCI operates two schemes: Instant GCI which is a pay-as-you-go scheme, and Corporate GCI which is used by large organisations with large volumes of orders. Accordingly, GCI has operated with two levels of commission: 5% for Instant GCI orders and 7.5% for Corporate GCI orders. Corporate GCI incurs a higher commission as there are typically more set-up and administration costs involved.
Corporate GCI orders will now be brought into line with Instant GCI and will now incur just 5% commission, a reduction of 2.5%. GCI said this change will put more money into the tills of independent bike shops, helping them to keep profits within their business, for the benefit of their community.
“This reduction in commission rates further enhances GCI’s position as being the best deal for employees, employers and bike shops,” said Joanna Flint, GCI’s marketing director. “We don’t profit by charging end-of-scheme fees which means our customers make the maximum possible savings.
“The Cycle to Work Scheme is there to benefit society, not large profit-making organisations. It’s important to make the scheme as accessible as possible to help get more people cycling, which in the end, benefits us all.”
Rob Howes, GCI’s founder and managing director, added: “I am delighted to be able to reduce the cost of the Cycle to Work Scheme for bike shops. The high commission rates of our competitors have been a bone of contention for a long time but thanks to the high volume of new customers coming to GCI, and the efficiencies we’ve made, we are now in a position to reduce our fees.
“As a UK-based social enterprise, we are proud to be doing our bit to help local economies and communities. Cycling is the future of commuter-travel and GCI aims to help people to achieve this vision.”
Read the March issue of BikeBiz below:
