We’re calling on bike shops to take the “Bike Shop Month Challenge” — to register every bike sold on Bike Index for the month of May. Already three bike shops have stepped up, and we’d love for every bike shop to join. All bike shops that choose to participate will be listed in a blog post and press release in early May.
Pledge to take the “Bike Shop Month Challenge”
Background
Every year, bike theft in Seattle increases substantially in May — Bike Month — when people start riding their bikes again.
Bike theft has a major impact on legitimate bike shops selling bikes. Since 2008, more than $8 million worth of bikes have been reported as stolen to the Seattle Police Department. And with significant under-reporting to police, it’s likely nearly $50 million worth of bikes have been stolen. It’s been found that 8% of people who have their bike stolen will never replace it, and many more people will buy a replacement bike of lower value.
Bike Index is one of the best ways to successfully recover stolen bikes and to deter bike theft. According to the King County Sheriff’s Office, nearly 70% of stolen bikes successfully returned to their owners are due to Bike Index.
So, one of the most important actions we can take to fight bike theft is to get bikes registered on Bike Index. In fact, if enough bikes are on Bike Index, we can make it nearly impossible for a thief to get away with theft.
The best time to get a bike registered is right at the point-of-sale. This is why we’re asking bike shops to commit for the month of May — Bike Month, to register every bike sold on Bike Index.
Bike Index is:
- free, simple, independent.
- a nonprofit, community-led, and designed by a former bike shop manager.
- global and based in Portland.
- successful, the most widely used registration system in the U.S. and successfully recovering more than 4,500 stolen bikes in the last few years.
How to register bikes in your bike shop
Step 1: Set-up an organizational account
The first step is to create an organizational account with Bike Index. This is free and quick. By doing this, you will be able to keep track of every bike you sell and register through your shop.
Step 2: The three easy ways to input bikes into Bike Index
There are three different, easy ways your bike shop can use Bike Index to register every bike sold.
1. Manually input each bike’s information
Either when you build each bike in your shop to ready it for sale or when you sell the bike, you would input the serial number, brand, and other descriptive information into Bike Index.
You probably already do something similar by inputting this information into an Excel spreadsheet or your shop’s database. You could either add the Bike Index step to your current process, or you could use Bike Index as your new method for recording this information. Either way, once you register a bike for the first time and learn the process, it shouldn’t take more than 60 seconds per bike more in time than what you are currently doing.
2. Send a file to Bike Index
If option one is too much work, you could continue to use your current tracking systems and at the end of the month send an Excel spreadsheet of the bikes you’ve sold to Bike Index.
Because this is more labor intensive on Bike Index’s side, it’s a less preferable approach. It also will likely result in fewer getting “claimed” by their owners.
3. Integrate your Lightspeed POS System with Bike Index
If you use the Lightspeed Point-of-Sale System, you can integrate it directly into Bike Index, registering every bike sold. If you use Lightspeed, this is by far the best option. Click here to learn more.
Step 3: Transfer ownership to the buyer.
If you manually register the bike at the point-of-sale, send a spreadsheet to Bike Index, or use the Lightspeed integration this won’t be an issue.
This is only an issue if you manually register bikes when the bike is built. When you sell a bike, you will simply log into Bike Index, click on the bike, and use the buyer’s email address to transfer ownership.
