Source: SAZBike

A German study has reported that buyers of both e-bikes and traditional bikes prefer to obtain information from brick-and-mortar retailers.

Research commissioned by the German insurance company Alteos looked into the purchasing behaviour of customers buying bicycles, plus assessments from specialist bike retailers. With Germany’s bicycle market seeing 3.85 million bicycles sold in 2024 alone – 2.05 million of which were e-bikes – the findings are significant.

Buyer behaviour

The survey, conducted by Civey, found that 58.6% of bicycle purchasers head to a physical store to gather information, in preference over digital channels or social media. 27% choose to use manufacturers’ own websites, while 24.7% use specialist retailers’ websites. The role of social networks such as Instagram, TikTok or Facebook only play a negligible role, even among the younger 18-29-year-old demographic.

Retailer insights

Face-to-face communication is also important from a retail point of view. 41% of the retailers surveyed confirm that personal interaction in the brick-and-mortar store is their most effective sales channel, echoing the findings about buyer behaviour, and allows retailers to position themselves as trustworthy partners. 40.3% of retailers rely on their own websites, far ahead of channels such as local media (18.8%) or social networks (5.9%).

In addition to new bike sales at 25.5%, dealers saw good revenue potential in company bike leasing, at 28.4%. Activities such as workshop services, accessories sales and insurance offerings followed at a greater distance. Over one third of respondents reported being unsure about which business areas are to be of most importance in the coming years.