Bike Shop Information Technology
All retail shops have inherent complexity but a Bicycle Shop is potentially closer to an automobile dealership in complexity than, say a clothing or housewares shop. Bike shops typically include repair, support and sometimes training components. Some take part in events. Margins are wildly varying: bikes having low margins and cycling clothing having high margins.
The Information Technology required by a busy Bicycle Shop is open-ended. There seems to be no limit to the sophistication potentially put to use by Bicycle Shop management and administration staff.
We will discuss key IT aspects of running a Bicycle Shop:
- keeping track of Bikes,
- keeping track of other Stock,
- formal stocktake,
- making & validating sales,
- avoiding staff errors & fraud,
- customer history,
- payment reconciliation,
- banking takings,
- ordering and receiving stock,
- timed sale campaigns,
- year-on-year reporting,
- shop performance snapshots,
- employee management,
- service
- error handling,
- web sales,
- surveillance,
- backup,
- computer & peripheral maintenance
- security...
Bike Service Information Technology
If you are only servicing a few Bikes per week, you can get by with minimum Information Technology. However, when your service department grows you may want to adopt a system which helps you:
- keep track of bookings, dropoffs and pickups
- remind customers about actions they need to take regarding booking, dropoff and pickup
- keep a log of customer communications
- identify and follow up on repairs which are on hold due to missing parts etc
- provide quick creation of signed paperwork for standard services and extras
Initially this can be as simple as keeping accurate notes in a spreadsheet or an outliner. Later, you might want to talk with us about the Bike Sale System's Service Subsystem.
