Are mobile bike shops that come to your door the next big thing? Beeline Bikes, a company that has found success in the San Francisco Bay Area thinks so. With two years under their belts, Beeline is now offering franchises and they’re testing the concept in the Portland market.
Learn more in the press release below:
Beeline Bikes brings the Mobile Bike Shop to Portland
Beeline Bikes, based in San Carlos, CA, is leading the #1 trend in the bicycle industry – the Mobile Bike Shop. By enabling customers to schedule a visit at the time and location of their choosing, Beeline is reinventing how people interact with bike shops by providing the ultimate in customer convenience.
Beeline has grown to 6 mobile bike shops in the SF Bay Area and exceeded the expectations of many thousands of customers. Beeline is now offering franchise opportunities in the US with an initial focus on the Portland. For franchise information visit https://beelinebikes.com/franchise
Beeline supports individual cyclists and their home or work. Most of the leading bike friendly companies in the San Francisco Bay Area collaborate with Beeline to offer a virtual bike shop at work for their employees.
Beeline was co-founded by Pete Buhl, a former tech industry executive and a long time cycling enthusiast. He started Beeline after finding it extremely difficult to get his bike serviced at a traditional bike shop: As a paying customer, he was astounded to be turned away from 4 shops that simply refused to work on his bike – one shop only serviced bikes they sold, another refused to work on his bike brand, and 2 other shops had waits of 2 to 3 weeks for service. Pete developed an innovative business model and joined forces with Andy Jeffrey, co-founder & CTO and Neil Macc, a 15 year cycling industry veteran, with incredible bicycle knowledge, and experience as a mechanic, service manager and buyer in the industry.
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AdvertisementBeeline brings the Mobile Bike Shop and customer convenience to the bicycle industry. The Beeline approach enables the customer to get service and product at the location and time of their choosing – the ultimate convenience, and enables the mechanic to provide friendly, professional personalized support to the customer. The Beeline platform and fully developed supply chain combined with a low overhead model enables mechanics to make a good living in the industry they love.
Customers appreciate the convenience of the bike shop coming to them at the time and location of their choice…..the ability to support a customer at their home or work is a huge win given everyone’s busy schedules. Also, consider the house call at which Beeline can address all the bikes in the garage in one efficient visit.
Beeline has serviced up to 8 bikes at a single house call – imagine the logistics of getting multiple bikes to and from a traditional shop for service. The Beeline objective – make it easy for more folks to get out and ride more often on a safe, well tuned & well equipped bike.
Founders
– Pete Buhl – co-Founder & CEO – over 30 years as a cycling enthusiast and 20+ years experience in Silicon Valley as a technology investor and operating executive. UC Berkeley.
– Andy Jeffrey – co-Founder & CTO – 25 years experience in roles as technology & operations executive (including building scalable inventory management, supply chain and retail systems). Williams College.
– Neil Macc – VP of Operations – 16 years in the bicycle industry as a mechanic, service manager and buyer. Past Service Manager at Palo Alto Bicycles.
The video below offers a quick overview of Beeline’s approach…
Portland is definitely the type of market where a service like this could work. It will be interesting to see whether or not it catches on.