BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Want to boost sales and instil confidence in shop sales staff? Training is often pitched as the answer to that question. But how do shops and brands roll out training to dozens or hundreds of sales people? Myagi tells BikeBiz that it has the answer…
The list of retailers who have signed up to Myagi’s online retail training platform, just months after its UK cycle market launch, is impressive. Who exactly? How about Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative, Alpine Bikes, Leisure Lakes, Rutland Cycling, Cycle Surgery and Cycles UK (with more to follow, we’re told)?
What links that bunch of respected bike retailers? Their enthusiasm for getting frontline retail staff fully trained up, for that is Myagi’s speciality. While new to the UK cycle trade, Myagi has already rolled out its product training and comms platform system to brands in the outdoor space (and the US and Australian cycle trade) such as Jack Wolfskin, Tiso, Blacks, Lapierre, Norco and even Adidas.
“The bike retailers we’ve spoken to have been so keen,” says Richard Smith, business development managed for Myagi. He tells BikeBiz: “Those smaller store networks, say between five and 20 stores, don’t necessarily have the resources to invest in a platform unlike, say, Evans. With Myagi they can roll out training across all their stores and also communicate with them at the press of a button. An MD can do a quick one minute web cam video and remind all the shops about a new product launching the next week, a certain promotion, that kind of thing. Then it gets sent to all the shops. It’s very simple.”
Smith is keen for Myagi to be seen as a solution to a problem. “Some of the retailers told us that they either don’t see brands in the store enough or even when they do, they did not always train on thing that they wanted them to. It’s a headache for them and for the brands too.
“There’s a lot of content out there already for bike shops. Often they get sent PDF emails and videos to share, but there’s no way to spread that information for a shop owner with limited resources. Emails aren’t auditable – how do you know the shop manager has watched a video? How do you know the shop’s frontline staff have seen it? Or taken it in?”
As Smith touches on, many brands already have excellent video training set-ups in place for shop staff covering their new products, how to service x,y,b, merchandising and more. But each brand having their own training platform is far from ideal, Smith explains: “What about the guy in the shop having to log into multiple training systems for different brands, with ten different log-ins? There’s no consolidation for them.”
The benefits for brands and distributors are clear too, Smith adds: “Brands spent half their time selling and half training. You can measure selling, but it is hard to measure training – Myagi has follow up quizzes to see what training has been retained by the shop staff.
“But we do not advocate brands and suppliers never going into shops,” he stresses. “This is another tool in the box. You can send out that training, see how successful it has been and then follow it up face-to-face.”
Myagi doesn’t provide any video production expertise to those using its platform, other than advising videos are kept simple.
“I don’t advocate Spielberg-esque videos for training. Not only do they take ages to put together but shop staff often feel it is like an advert, which doesn’t help. I’d rather see someone sat on a stool next to a bike, explaining the geometry of a new model.
“Training is so important. It builds confidence in sales staff and in their credibility too.
“The challenge now is to make sure Myagi is introduced to brands and distributors in the right way: As a solution to a problem.”
