Bike shop and bike repair: online store, stock, booking
Spring at a bike shop starts on a single day, and for everyone at once. Bikes that have survived the winter are wheeled into the workshop, people at the counter ask for helmets and inner tubes, and online orders come in for chains and brake pads. All of it sells from the same shelf — but if the online store, the till and the workshop notebook are in different places, none of them knows what's actually left on the shelf.
What bike shops complain about most
- "In season the repair queue lives on the phone and on paper — nobody knows when a bike will be ready."
- "We fit a part during a repair, but it never gets taken off the stock."
- "We sold a chain online when the last one went onto someone's bike yesterday."
- "Frame sizes and colours make the product catalogue a mess."
One stock level for the shop, the website and the workshop
NUNDINAE's biggest advantage for a bike shop is that the online store and the stock are one application. The chain you sell online is the same chain you sell over the counter and put on a repair invoice in the workshop. When the last one goes through any channel, all the others see it at the same moment. You don't have to buy two separate programs or integrate them.
Day-to-day stock work is done with a barcode scanner:
| Situation | What you do |
|---|---|
| The supplier's box arrives | "Receive goods (scanner)", scan each part, save. Unknown codes stay on the list in red. |
| "Do we still have this inner tube?" | Scan it on any admin page — you see the name, price and remaining stock. |
| Fewer on the shelf than in the system | Type the correct quantity; the change is logged with your name and the time. |
| Running low | An alert on the dashboard; a supplier order sheet by brand, as CSV. |
| End-of-season stocktake | Counted quantities as a CSV file, which become the new stock levels. |
Any USB or Bluetooth barcode scanner that works as a keyboard will do; on a phone or tablet you can use the camera. More in inventory management with a barcode scanner.
Bikes with variants
A bike model is one product in the shop with variants — frame size and colour, for example. "Add several at once" creates all the combinations for you (three sizes × two colours = six options), and each variant has its own SKU, EAN, price, stock level and, if you want, photos. The customer picks a size and colour in the shop and sees immediately whether it's available. A variant's code can be scanned straight into the table cell.
Repair slots online
The bookings module lets customers pick a service slot themselves. A service has a duration and buffer time, and alongside the mechanics the calendar includes rooms and equipment — a repair stand, for example. Double bookings are impossible in the system, so in season you don't take in more bikes than you can handle. When a customer phones, you book them in through the admin and the confirmation with a calendar file goes out straight away.
Parts on the repair invoice. When the bike is done, you open the booking, scan the parts used onto the invoice and record the payment. The parts come off the stock in exactly that quantity. If a service always uses the same item, you attach it to the service and it comes off the stock when the job is marked as done. You can email the invoice to the customer.
A till at the counter
At the till you scan a product and it goes into the basket; from "Today's bookings" you add the service along with the customer. Payment can be cash, card, gift card or several at once. At the end of the day, "Close day" gives you a summary by payment method.
The online store and the shop assistant
In the online store, payments go through Montonio (bank links, card, Apple Pay, Google Pay) or by bank transfer, delivery is priced by country, postcode, weight and order value, and SmartPost parcel lockers are available. At the start of the season you can run a campaign with a validity period or a bundle deal with a gift.
The shop assistant recommends only products in stock. In its product search guidance you write examples from your own field of how a customer's words turn into a search phrase — for example "my chain is creaking" → "chain oil". More on this in an AI shopping assistant for your online store.
A reminder for the next service
The automated messages module sends a repeat-visit reminder based on the service interval, if the customer hasn't booked a new appointment themselves, and asks for feedback after the service. Marketing messages go only to customers who have given consent.
How to make the switch
- Products come across from your old online store (e.g. WooCommerce) together with their variants.
- EAN codes can be added in bulk from the supplier's price list (SKU;EAN).
- Stock levels come from a stocktake CSV — the end of the season is a good moment.
- Customers come from CSV; I redirect the old addresses so Google's links don't break.
I do the migration and setup myself. If you'd like to see how this works for your shop and workshop, order NUNDINAE or ask for a demo.
