BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
In its first year since launch, Bike Shop Manager has handled over 36,000 bike rentals totalling over £670,000 gross revenue for the shops using the system, in the UK and in France.
Bike Shop Manager is a piece of software created by bike shop owner and programmer Doug Stoddart, designed to take the pain out of organising bike rental businesses.
Rutland Cycles is among the retailers that have worked with Bike Shop Manager to handle its large rental fleet of around 700 bicycles.
Stoddart told BikeBiz: "The fact that we’ve had paying customers using the system almost since day one has meant that the system does exactly what my clients need it to do. They have literally helped shape the product and continue to do so.
"In development at the moment are a raft of exciting new features including bar-code scanning of bikes, to facilitate rapid check-in and out, as well as inventory checks. A new version of online booking that the clients will be able to customise and easily integrate into their sites is also scheduled for the 2013 season. It will use a wizard similar to online booking for cars."
Despite having active enquiries from Italy, Spain, France and the UK, Stoddart said they’ll limit the number of new bike shops they work with in 2013 to just 15 "to continue to safeguard the service we deliver our clients, and maintain a steady but maintainable growth".
