Remember when it was just about selling bikes?
These days, running a bike shop often feels like a lot more than that.
Customers expect faster responses. More updates. Greater clarity around workshop status, delivery times and servicing.
At the same time, many shops are still feeling the effects of the boom that swept through the industry during the pandemic years.
But what changed, and why it’s still shaping everyday life in bike shops today?
A boom nobody was ready for
In 2020, the bike market changed almost overnight.
Lockdowns, a surge in interest in outdoor exercise and a desire to avoid public transport sent demand for bikes and e-bikes sharply upward across Europe.
According to CONEBI, sales of bikes and e-bikes increased by 40% in 2020, reaching their highest level in more than 20 years, as shown in the figures below.
growth in European bike and e-bike sales in 2020.
increase in European e-bike sales in 2020.
months' wait time on certain bike models during 2021-2022.
That’s roughly 22 million bikes sold across the EU and UK combined.
For many shops, it felt like everything was flying off the shelves the moment it arrived.
Waiting lists grew quickly.
Lead times stretched from months to, in some cases, well over a year.
Certain models became almost impossible to source.
E-bikes saw particularly explosive growth. CONEBI reported a 52% increase in e-bike sales in 2020 alone, representing a total market value of €10.6 billion.
The industry responded in the way you’d expect.
Shops placed orders further ahead, stock levels climbed, and manufacturers ramped up production to try to keep pace with demand.
The hangover hit in 2022 and 2023
The boom didn’t last.
From 2022 onwards, demand began to soften while shops and suppliers were still sitting on stock they had built up during the frantic years before.
Many had bought into a reality that had quietly shifted beneath them.
According to CONEBI’s 2024 report, sales of traditional bikes fell from 14.7 million units in 2022 to 11.7 million in 2023, while overall revenue across bikes and e-bikes dropped by 8.9%.
For many retailers, it was a difficult transition: from waiting lists and stock shortages to full warehouses, cautious customers and a market moving at a far slower pace than during the pandemic years.
What had briefly looked like a new normal turned out, in many cases, to be a temporary spike.
E-bikes as the one reliable growth story
Amid all the turbulence, one trend has remained consistent:
e-bike sales.
While overall bike sales have swung considerably, e-bikes have continued to grow as a category.
Even in the weaker year of 2023, e-bike sales remained more than 50% above pre-pandemic levels, according to CONEBI.
The e-bike is no longer a niche product or a passing trend. It’s become a core part of the market.
That has changed the customer profile in many shops.
Average transaction values have risen significantly, and with that, customer expectations around the purchase – and the aftercare – have risen too.
When someone spends £2,500 or more on a bike, it’s not an impulse buy.
It’s a considered investment. And investments come with expectations.
As e-bike ownership grows, servicing is becoming an increasingly important part of many bike retailers’ businesses.
Unlike a traditional bike sale, the relationship often continues long after the customer leaves the shop.
That creates new opportunities, but also new expectations around communication, booking, status updates and aftercare.
Customers don’t just expect the bike to work.
They expect clear communication, prompt responses and transparency around servicing, job status and delivery.
Customers are no longer as willing to accept uncertainty around status, wait times and communication as they might once have been. That means the pressure is increasingly falling on the experience around the sale and the service – not just the product itself.
Someone else raised the bar
The biggest change in bike retail over the last few years might not be about bikes at all.
It’s come from the wider world, and it’s gradually reshaped what customers think of as normal.
- Real-time parcel tracking.
- Responses within minutes.
- The ability to follow an order from dispatch to doorstep.
That’s the standard large digital platforms have set for consumers – and it’s the benchmark customers now bring into every service interaction, including their visit to your shop.
Customers can track a £20 parcel to their doorstep in real time.
So when they leave a £3,000 bike for service, they naturally expect updates there too.
Customers are no longer comparing you to the bike shop down the road.
They’re comparing you to the best digital experience they encounter in their everyday lives.
That’s not a criticism of bike shops. It’s a structural shift in what good service feels like – one created entirely by players outside the industry.
The real challenge starts after the sale
So where does all of this leave the average bike shop?
In many cases, juggling three changes at once: a market that has cooled, customers who look different than they did five years ago, and expectations around service that continue to rise.
The interesting part?
None of these changes have much to do with whether you’re good at selling bikes.
That pressure rarely shows up in the quality of the product or the technical expertise on offer.
It shows up in everything that surrounds the job.
When will the bike be ready? What’s the status? Can they get it done before the weekend?
Questions that in many shops are still answered manually and reactively – but which customers increasingly expect to be answered proactively and digitally.
And that’s the reality many bike shops are navigating today.
The bike is still important. But increasingly, it’s the experience around it that customers remember.
How do you optimize your bike store?
Download our free The Ultimate Bike Store Guide and learn how to spend less time on outdated IT systems and more time on happy customers.
