Gallagher Cycles in Donegal has
enjoyed a 10-fold increase in bike sales since re-opening two weeks ago and was
forced to disable the shopping cart on its website due to demand.
With couriers busier than ever, and
some under-staffed due to Covid19, the shop was selling bikes and accessories
much faster online than couriers could match with their deliveries.
It meant in a bid not to disappoint or
mislead buyers, Gallagher’s had to disable the cart on its online shop for a
period last week.
Adi Gallagher, whose shop is based
in Lifford, is the latest in a line of Irish cycling retailers telling stickybottle
that the bike business is booming since cycling shops were allowed to re-open
two weeks ago.
The latest Sport Ireland research shows cycling numbers in the Republic have more than doubled since last year. Furthermore, with bikes and other stock hard to source, Irish retailers are struggling to keep up.
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And the stock that can be source and delivered on time is often selling out before most of the bikes have even been taken out of their boxes.
138 missed calls in a few hours, deliveries eventually getting through but still an empty shop floor as the bikes are flying out the door...
Gallagher said business is so busy
that in one four-hour period last week he had 138 missed calls on his mobile;
all from people looking to buy bikes and other kit and those with queries about
planned purchases.
“We have an empty shop floor. Though
pallets (of bikes) are arriving daily they’re selling before they even make it
to the shop floor,” he said.
“We have had to close the shop and
offer customers appointment only for collection as we had nothing left to show
our customers. Sales have risen 10 times on that of last year.
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“We also had to deactivate the shopping cart on the website over last weekend as we couldn’t cope with the orders and backlog. Due to couriers being under-staffed and busier than usual they could only take so many packages each day.”
Gallagher added that in his efforts
to keep up with demand he has had to draft in family members to help out.
“Things are crazy, the main bike
supplier for Ireland in Belfast is now sold out on all bikes below €700 and we
find that customers are taking anything they can get their hands on at the
moment.
“We even had customers arguing over
a trade-in bike that both wanted when they came to the shop at the same time. All UK suppliers are sold out of everything.
We even ran out of tubes.”
He added the shop was waiting for 100 adult bikes to arrive next week and the business already has a waiting list of buyers of around the same number.
However, though business is booming, Gallagher said given the sheer volume of children’s bikes he has sold he wonders if a lot of kids who would have gotten bikes next Christmas won’t need them in December, leading to a flatter festive season.
“We have been in business eight years and have had some busy moments but this is something else,” he said.
His supplier in Belfast has said he
has seen nothing like the demand for bikes at present in his 30 years in
business.
“They had enough stock to last to
September and are completely sold out,” he said of the same supplier.
“We had bikes delivered in a
container one day last week and they were all gone by the next day. We’d
usually have 70 to 100 bikes in stock and last week at one point we had only
two left.”
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