The Electric Bike Shop talk business networking, B2B, future growth

With the UK eBike and eMobility space supporting the transition to active travel, and an increasing number of businesses looking to LEV as last mile delivery solutions, CI.N spoke with Iwan Jones, Commercial Manager for The Electric Bike Shop, discussing the evolution of the business, its B2B interests, and the business networking activities they’re engaging in.

When we’d previously chatted about the Cardiff store, you’d mentioned that the re-opening (as an official TEBS store) was very much business focused, and looking at local business partnerships.

To provide a little more context, we took on the premises from Pure Electric late last year, in October, November time, and we opened the shop shortly afterwards. It was a real bonus taking on a store that was already an established eBike shop, but when we opened it in December, we didn’t have a full team. We got things going, but Christmas isn’t the best time to do a launch at a store. We waited, got a strong team in place, made sure the shop was working for us, and then recently when it came to doing a launch event, we were also beginning  to focus on local outreach.

We’re investing a lot more in marketing, and we’re also making a concerted effort to talk with businesses, organisations, public and private about various ways that eBikes could benefit the people within those organisations or the businesses themselves. We’re doing an awful lot of outreach and networking activity, and we saw an opportunity in Cardiff to do that as part of the launch.

We have a contact at Barclays, Chris Skinner, and he’s part of Barclays Eagle Labs, a service that Barclays provides, which support businesses, helping them connect, grow, and scale. This includes networking in his area, for those that bank with Barclays. He tends to focus on small to medium enterprises, entrepreneurial businesses, young start-ups, or businesses that have a focus on sustainability.

Chris is also a keen mountain biker, so with him, the stars truly aligned. We got Chris on the phone, had a little meeting and it was obvious that he was very well connected locally so we decided to do an event with him and roll it into the launch. It came about quite organically actually. Chris got all manner of Businesses into the store who seemed to have a genuine interest in what we’re trying to achieve.

We had Sustrans in store. FOR Cardiff, the Cardiff Business District came along. We had a local bike charity called Pedal Power. Cardiff Cycle City came down, who’re a campaign group encouraging people to ride bikes. We had Cube, and we had a green energy company. Also there was an EV charging company. As you can see, all manner of businesses turned up, making it quite a buoyant atmosphere.

With events, you always wonder how it will go. You know, you put the balloons up, dress the store, organise refreshments, rally the team and you cross your fingers. Thanks to Chris we found ourselves practically shouting at one point because the volume got so loud, with so many conversations happening at once and test rides taking place. It was a really good event.

We’re looking to follow up on these connections where we share genuine interests, and a desire to work together. We’re looking to do all manner of joint ventures, and nothing’s off the table, really. So, whether it’s events, turning up to support with repair work, turning up at an office to show off bikes, speaking about cycle to work, or just letting people have a go on an eBike – still a big learning leap for a lot of people who aren’t familiar with the product – there’s so many options.

The Cardiff event was so successful that we’re now looking to replicate that elsewhere across the country. Naturally enough, Barclays have Eagle Labs all over the country.

Interesting thing there; you mentioned EV charging and I immediately wrote a note, ‘partnerships with commercial EV suppliers’. When you look at your events and you look at the contacts that you’re building my thought immediately goes to last mile delivery and reasonably the audience that they potentially have, there must be a commercial tie in there?

Yeah, nothing’s off the table. A business whom we met with is certainly very keen to work with us, and it could lead all sorts of routes. So, there could be something like that on the horizon for sure. I mean it’s an interesting mutual interest, isn’t it?

Part of the challenge is that when you look at commercial fleet vehicle managers in the UK at least, not enough are currently seeing this kind of conversation in their space. When I look at the European Fleet Vehicle publications, last mile delivery, eCargo bikes are in every publication and an almost everyday part of the news.

I’m confident we’ll see a lot more of this in the UK as well. The tide has certainly started to turn and as you know, different brands are launched being periodically, all trying to find their corner of the marketplace. This certainly is a very fast-moving and diverse market. That’ll mean there’ll be players come and go over the next few years. We’re trying to get ourselves in there early to start these relationships now. I think we’re in a really strong position to grow as the UK market grows.

Agreed. I think the advantage you have is that you have a public facing presence. So if and when you pivot towards fleet and commercial sales, you’ll be able to say something that very few others are able to say. We don’t manufacture a vehicle, but we have 12 stores countrywide with X number of units sold over the course of a financial year for the value of and we will be your fleet provider as well.

Yeah, exactly. Pretty unique in that respect. Where we say, as a real point of strength, ‘we have colleagues up and down the country, able to support’. We’re working on the logistics side of things as well. We’re also exploring a mobile mechanic service element, and unrelated but equally interesting, lease hire fleets as well. So there’s all types of things being discussed and considered.

When you mentioned the mobile mechanical fleet services element, I guess you’re seeing the same thing I’m seeing: There are car dealers in the UK who sell a global brand, and are now selling high price point eBikes to their high price point EV customers, yet have no in-house means to service that product. So if you buy a BMW, Mercedes or Porsche eBike, from the car dealership, and you were expecting Porsche standards of service for your eBike, as well as for your car, at the moment you’re likely in for a rude awakening.

There’s clearly a mobile service support opportunity there. Also, for us, with the ability to fix these bicycles at every The Electric Bike Shop location. Generally, we have at least 2 highly trained colleagues at every branch who can fix pretty much anything on an eBike, which isn’t that common.

The other thing is, if and when our customer is stuck, we’re looking for ways to provide remote support and a style of local call out function. It’s something we are exploring, as a means to build confidence with those who are riding eBike who have made the shift to the bike as a new or alternative form of transport. That support gives confidence, keeps people riding, gets them riding more, and further.

You’ve seen the Fettle and Kwik Fit announcement, with the first parent location being Bristol based? It replicated what was launched last year by Kwik Fit in the Netherlands.

I saw that the other week. A great venture. I wasn’t aware of that it was already a thing in the Netherlands, but I mean, it is an interesting model. Whether it’s a scalable or will work everywhere, I don’t know, but we’ll watch out with keen eyes here, it’s a great idea. We really admire Fettle and wish them all the best with it.

Your mobile mechanic service may initially focus on your own customers, with remote call out as it were, but there’s a massive opportunity to extend that, pitching to the auto industry, where they are looking for service relationships to meet a customer expectation. You arguably have 2 streams of revenue from a single idea.

Essentially, we’re going to explore the model to see how it works for us. We don’t want to overstretch ourselves. But then we already do it to some extent, where we will help out with the odd job, when our customer is really stuck. It’s not a standard service offer that we have just yet, but then we’re working to expand on that.

With this in mind, we’ve started selling The Electric Bike Shop servicing plans recently, where you can buy two or three-year packages. We’ll need to be able to facilitate those going forward, and then there will be a corporate version of that as well for fleet servicing too, which is again still being worked on (as of yet not released), but that’s something that’ll be coming in the not-too-distant future.

We’ve taken a couple of new people into the business, which is change the daily workings of a lot of the guys within the business in the positive way, giving us the space to be more free thinking in the ways that we can improve the business even further. It’s a really exciting time for us at The Electric Bike Shop.

There’s certainly a lot of work in progress going on at the minute. It’ll be a busy summer for us. We’ll look to have 18 stores by the end of this calendar year. So yeah, we’re on a roll.

The Electric Bike Shop will be attending a host of events over the summer months, taking eBikes to the people, looking to actively engage with the wider public, outside of traditional cycling circles. To achieve this you’ll find the The Electric Bike Shop demo team at 9 county shows, starting with the RHS Malvern Spring Festival, 11 – 14 May 2023, and concluding at the Newbury Show, Saturday 16th – Sunday 17th September 2023