Readers always ask us to do more to feature local bike shops. It’s the reason we launched the free London Cyclist app to showcase some of London’s best bike shops.
Today, we’re launching a new useful tool for London cyclists in collaboration with Pocket High Street.
Using the orange search box on the right hand side of our site, you will be able to search for products in over 100 independent London bike shops.
If you are on mobile, you’ll need to scroll to the end of this post to see it.
I know that often we feature products on Wiggle, Amazon and Chain Reaction Cycles here on London Cyclist, which helps us keep the lights on and the site running. However, this is an experiment to see if we can switch to a model which supports local businesses.
We’re going to keep it on the sidebar for a few months and see what kind of feedback we receive. If readers are happy with it, we’ll keep it on there more long term.
As part of the launch, PocketHighStreet have also asked some of London’s cycling retailers to offer some special deals for London Cyclist readers only.
Tribesports – Men’s Performance Cycling Jersey (RRP £48.00 – Now £24.00)
http://pockethighstreet.com/
There Cycling – Lightrider Bike Light – £29.99
http://pockethighstreet.com/
Velorution – Vintage Road Boots (RRP £105.00 – Now £94.50)
http://pockethighstreet.com/
Bikefix – Tigr Lock TL217 (RRP £130.00 – Now £104.00)
http://pockethighstreet.com/
Deen’s Garage – Altura Evo Glove (RRP £44.99 – Now £40.49)
http://pockethighstreet.com/
Ben Thomson’s Cycleworx – Ksyrium SLR Wheels (RRP £1,200.00 – Now £799.99)
http://pockethighstreet.com/
Moore’s Cycles – Cateye Stealth 10 GPS Computer (RRP £79.99 – Now £63.99)
http://pockethighstreet.com/
Give the search box a try on the right and let me know how you get on 🙂
If you have any questions about PocketHighStreet while using their service, you can drop Community@
Cool!! Nice to search like google but still keep it local.
Thanks Hugo! Pleased you’re enjoying the experience.
Thanks guys, way to go, to support the local shops, wooo woo!
Thanks for your comments Molly. It’s about time someone levelled the playing field!
Local independents have so much to offer but lack the resources to compete with the big boys online… Till now!
Great idea, well done, but it needs to be up-to-date to become the potential useful resource that it could be. Searching(for instance “Castelli”) comes up with links to products available from Kinoko in Soho, London. Unfortunately, this great shop closed in September as can be seen on their website; “As of September 1st 2014 our Soho store is closed. We’d like to thank all of our customers who visited us at the the store and we hope you will all stay with us on the ride to come”.
Glad you love the idea, Lou.
We are working hard to make PocketHighStreet an ever more useful resource for London shoppers and local shops.
Kinoko’s store listing was removed from our mobile app months ago but their products appear to have been showing briefly when we switched on this web version late last week.
This weekend we built a platform level solution to stop this happening in the future. Thanks again for your feedback – it really does make a difference!
Great article, more power to the local retailers! Keep up the great work guys! PD
Thanks for your comments Philip.
Great write up as always Andreas!
Is the price that I am given (£24 for a Panaracer Pasela tyre) the collect price?
There was also no clue as to the size. I was just taken to a PayPal page.
Good question Andy – will check with Alex and see what he says.
Hey Andy
Click & Collect is always free!
Some shops are happy to do delivery too. They’ll let you know in their order reservation email… and soon any local or nationwide delivery options will be on every product page.
Anything you like in PocketHighStreet can be ordered from the local shop selling it. They’ll let you know sizes stocked in their reservation email when it’s not highlighted in the product’s description.
If there’s ever an issue with the order you can get a same day full refund… just reply to your confirmation email from orders@pockethighstreet.com saying ‘refund’.
Hope you’re as excited as we are! 🙂
Hi Alex
I live up in Shetland, so click and collect isn’t really an option for me. I suspect that the LBS would just buy from Amazon and add their margin, not behaviour I want to reinforce. So I might as well check out remote (London) LBS’ and see what the prices come out at compared to places like SJS. I don’t mind the supplier making a profit, but being able to buy a £30 spindle for £15 from elsewhere is a no brainer for the consumer.
Hi Andy
Thanks for your comments. This is an interesting and complex area.
Some big online-only shops will of course be cheaper across certain ranges, but that’s far from the whole story…
You’ll often find there’s no room for comparison anyway as some of the best manufacturers and distributors exclusively stock certain products in local bike shops only.
When there are identical products, many online shops are monitored and regulated to ensure they maintain price floors in-season so, your local shop will often have more room to discount in-store than the big guys do online.
Lots of retailers selling on PocketHighStreet are also doing Click & Collect only special offers. It’s worth it for the LBS as bringing people through the door gives the them a chance to show off their experience, build a deeper relationship, offer complementary services and as a result we often end up riding out with more than we planned to buy in the 1st place! And then we often come back for more later!
While the growth in Click & Collect is often attributed to the convenience and time saving benefits… Tactical approaches to pricing has a role to play too.
Some of our local retailers are happy to deliver nationwide. If you find something you want on PocketHighStreet this week Andy, drop us a line at (community@pockethighstreet.com) and we’ll help you and the LBS out this time with the shipping 🙂
I’m going to buy an adult tricycle from my local bike shop early next year. I found out that they sell tricycles when I was researching on the Internet. However the pocket High Street returned a ‘no results found’ message
Hi smorkey
We’re set up to help every local shop showcase their store and products.
Today, over 100 independent bike shops (more stores than Evans, Halfords and Cycle Surgery combined in London) are selling around 40,000 products and services.
While this already makes PocketHighStreet the most comprehensive resource for London cyclists looking to find things for sale nearby, new shops are signing up every day and we’d be happy to help your local bike shop get their products into PocketHighStreet too.
If you could let us know the name of the shop (drop us a line anytime on community@pockethighstreet.com) we’ll speak to them this week. Thanks for the recommendation.
Cool idea – Looks great! Is it just london or will you be expanding to the rest of the uk? Thinking about kent…..(Specifically + selfishly!!) ;—)
Thanks Karl
Over time we plan to help local shops across the UK.
But when we launched this summer, we wanted to focus every minute and penny we had on connecting London shops and cyclists like never before!
As well as being all over London we have an increasing coverage in the Home Counties.
If you haven’t already… Do check out Whites Cycle Centre in Bexleyheath. Highly recommended by my team and offering Click & Collect through PocketHighStreet.