At Electric Bike Conversions, we first saw the potential of
electric bikes when we came across them through our work with a fitness
equipment supplier. The brand we had
seen was a top end brand outside the price range of many people, especially in
our working class hometown of Stoke on Trent. That didn’t mean that we couldn’t
see the potential future market, but we knew that prices had to fall in order
to attract the wide range of customers that would make the business viable.
We set up Ebike Superstore initially and decided to focus
on the lower priced ranges available from a few suppliers and offered a
predominantly web-based store to meet more than the local demand. Whilst we got quite a few sales, we soon realised
many of these bikes had too high a failure rate, and found it difficult to cope
with the quantity of returns, given the number we had sold coupled with the generally
poor supplier aftersales support. This
all reflects badly on us and we knew there must be a better way …Electric Bike Conversions was born.
We found a really good supplier of electric bike conversion
kits in Cyclotricity and set about installing their kits on some good quality
bikes to show what we could do. We set
up the website, www.electric-bike-conversions.co.uk, where we offer everything
from the sale of kits for the DIY enthusiast to a full conversion. This could be either the customer’s own bike,
if it’s suitable, or a brand new bike of their choice which they can either source
themselves or we can do that for them.
We will even arrange to collect a customer’s bike and drop-off the
finished converted bike back to them. Customers
also have the option to buy one of the ready-made conversions we keep in our
workshop/showroom in Stoke to show the range of things we can do. Very often, customers
who just drop by to ‘have a look’ often drive away with one of these models
after being blown away by a test ride.
They’ve usually visited other e-bike retailers by this point and are
impressed by what we have to offer and how knowledgeable we are. The word is getting out too – we have
customers who have travelled half the length of the country just to discuss
their requirements with us or to drop their bike off for a conversion, and
those that come following recommendations from existing customers. There aren’t many companies out there
offering conversion services and as the popularity of electric bikes increases,
we’ll hopefully be there to meet some of that demand.
As for the future, we’re looking at adding to our range of
kits and keeping the showroom stocked with some great bikes to suit all tastes
and ages, so it looks like we’ll be busy over the winter months preparing some
exciting stock for 2016.
