Workstand Blog

Key article takeaways

• Consumers can find name brand cycling products on buylocalnow.com and see what bike shops near them have the item available for purchase.
• Bike shops automatically display on buylocalnow.com if you have a SmartEtailing or Buy Local Now account with POS and Supplier Sync.
• SmartEtailing will invest 1% of website subscription revenue into advertising Buy Local Now to consumers, investing in driving qualified buyers to your bike shop.

What is Buy Local Now?

Buy Local Now, SmartEtailing’s proprietary product locator service, has been industry leading since it was introduced in 2012. The service has helped nearly 4 million cyclists find products at their local bike shop when browsing brand websites. With our new consumer website, we will help even more cyclists buy local.

Any qualifying local bike shop with a compatible point of sale system can join the Buy Local Now network for free. Retailers with a SmartEtailing website will offer consumers a superior shopping experience because shoppers will be one click away from purchasing. While all local bike shops can benefit from Buy Local Now referrals, SmartEtailing websites are optimized to take advantage of the deep integration between Buy Local Now and SmartEtailing websites.

Drive qualified buyers to your business

With buylocalnow.com, SmartEtailing will refer more qualified buyers to your business.

We’ve reviewed data for Buy Local Now referrals to bike shops from supplier websites and found that the revenue per visitor is $1.29 each, nearly equal to the productivity of visitors from Google Ads. These referrals come at no additional cost to you.

This new website has the largest selection of name brand cycling products found anywhere. Consumers will discover the website through advertising on YouTube and Google, and through organic search for product names, platforms, and categories.

When new products are released, we will publish rich content to compete for early search traffic. This helps us combat a common challenge for bike shops. Major media outlets survive on affiliate marketing from pure ecommerce sellers. When consumers first encounter new products on some of these media outlets, they find links to purchase from sellers like Amazon. We want local bike shops to win searches and ultimately win the customers’ business.

When shoppers find what they want, they will click the “Buy Local Now” button to see bike shops near them that have the product in stock or available to order.

Pool the resources of local bike shops

Through long term partnerships with brands and suppliers, SmartEtailing has built an interconnected IBD retail network. We want to amplify the power of this network by helping more consumers discover how easy it is to buy from their local bike shop.

We understand that most bike shops have limited marketing budgets and struggle to compete for organic product search traffic. When a bike shop chooses to partner with SmartEtailing, we provide a 24/7 marketing and sales solution that increases organic web traffic and captures sales online. But even with a catalog enabled website, local businesses don’t have the same resources as a national retailer.

Buy Local Now will build a national audience through content marketing and PPC advertising. We will fund marketing initiatives by allocating 1% of your website subscription to advertise bike shops to consumers. We are making this investment to grow your revenue without increasing your costs. By joining in the SmartEtailing network, you are contributing to the effort to help bike shops compete.

SmartEtailing is more than a website provider. We are an active partner in helping bike shops like yours thrive. Buy Local Now is a way for our company to help yours grow.

Help consumers discover trustworthy products

Third party marketplaces like Amazon are popular in part because they offer a single website where consumers find a huge selection. As you know, these sites are flooded with unrefined products adjacent to name brand options. The average consumer doesn’t know the difference because even the largest cycling brands don’t have brand building budgets to create broader consumer awareness.

We understand that local bike shops know how to curate reputable brands. That’s why we will only display products that bike shops like yours support, helping consumers find high quality product faster.

Google search has become so competitive that it is hard for the average local bike shop to compete with national sellers for product searches. We are pooling the resources of hundreds of local bike shops to keep the IBD channel on page one.

Improve the SmartEtailing platform

SmartEtailing is one of the cycling industry’s leading advocates for the IBD channel. We provide technology solutions for roughly 40% of US bike shops. But we’ve found that our voice is only as powerful as the sales volume happening on bike shop websites.

That’s why you’ve seen us making continuous investments to improve shopping functionality. The results speak for themselves. Retailer online sales are up 20% over 2018, visits up 11%, and revenue per visitor up 8%. Individual retailers are seeing meaningful growth in their online sales and that helps SmartEtailing provide suppliers with tangible results that keep them committed to the IBD channel.

Buy Local Now is built with SmartEtailing website software. We will use buylocalnow.com as a test platform to add new features and refine functionality which will immediately benefit all of our local bike shop clients.

Bike shops are the center of our universe

Everything we do at SmartEtailing revolves around local bike shops and their ability to serve local cyclists. We believe that bike shops are an essential part of each community’s cycling infrastructure and we are doing everything we can to ensure that there is a sustainable future for bike shops.

For 20 years, SmartEtailing has been the premier technology partner for bike shops. We will continue to find new ways to keep the IBD channel relevant and growing.

We are excited for Buy Local Now’s potential to put local bike shops first in the minds of cyclists.