BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
PedalRepublic, a new online cycling marketplace, has launched this week.
Its features include four independent modes, road, MTB, BMX, and vintage, a fully dedicated live auction facility as well as standard classified advertising and make-offer tools, a unique area for pro teams to sell and advertise their ex-kit, bikes and merchandise, and a real-time ‘WhatsApp style’ chat tool. The site is also “100% free to use for everybody from private sellers through to trade and local bike shops”, PedalRepublic has said. It doesn’t charge any fees or commissions for private sellers and bike shops.
A statement said: “Unlike sites like eBay which lock down the exchange of information such as telephone numbers and email addresses, PedalRepublic actively encourages this information exchange as there’s no vested interest in profit making, thus making the whole process of negotiating and selling, particularly for higher priced items like a bicycle, so much easier.
“Since there are no seller’s fees to worry about and understanding the reality that a lot of people prefer to make cash transactions in person, the system has also been designed to allow cash deals to be fully
concluded on the site, giving a legitimate paper trail for this type of a transaction.
“With an account, you get a dashboard which offers buyers and sellers complete control over every area of transactions akin to what we have come to expect from the biggest of them all, eBay. For sellers, tracking the movement of sales from initial advert creation through to dealing with final checkout and payments is simple and logical. Similarly, on the buyer’s side, you have everything from your watch list through to offers you may make, purchases pending and so on.”
The site has been designed and built by two cyclists with backgrounds in IT based in the North West of England.
Andrew Pringle said: “Along with everybody else, we have grown tired of the greed and extortionate fees you now have to pay to simply sell something online. We decided a couple of years ago to show it was possible to design and build something which was able to provide the same user experience people have come to expect, but still be totally free. With our passion for cycling, this seemed the obvious place to start.”
Richard Hoddinott added: “We were also acutely aware of the fact that by providing a free platform for trade it would give your local bike shop the opportunity to have the same profile and real estate on-line as the big fish. Encouraging bricks and mortar shops to work online to stem possible closure may sound paradoxical, but the internet is not going anywhere anytime soon and something like PedalRepublic’s free e-commerce platform could be a start towards stemming the tide of the rapid closures local bike shops have experienced in recent years.”
