How Paul's Cycles grew 30%

The UK retail market is struggling right now: store closures are forecasted to rise by 30% and consumer budgets are stretched thinner than ever. In the bicycle world, cycling participation is back to pre-pandemic levels, meaning the lockdown bike boom is well and truly over. Yet, against this challenging backdrop, Paul’s Cycles has grown. Our revenue is up 30%, and unit sales have jumped by 35% year-on-year.

We achieved this through a strong commitment to value, strategic thinking, and, most importantly, our customers. Here’s some insight into how we did it:

Know your market and move with it

The reality is that people aren’t impulse-buying £2,000 bikes in a cost-of-living crisis. Nearly half of UK consumers say they can’t afford a new bike outright. That means if we wanted to keep growing, we needed to make buying from us an easy, logical choice by offering real value and not just shouting about it.

For us, that meant doubling down on two things: product performance analysis and strategic buying. We didn’t just follow trends, we anticipated them. We dug into the numbers, listened to what customers actually wanted, and leaned into high-performing categories like adventure cycling. This resulted in a 191% revenue increase in mountain bikes and a staggering 432% rise in full-suspension MTB revenue.

The lesson we learned is if you’re not obsessed with your product data, you’re navigating without a roadmap. Understand what sells, why it sells, and how to offer the right value at the right time.

Stop selling and start helping

Retail isn’t just about transactions; it’s about trust. That’s why we built our business around expert guidance and customer support – before, during, and after the sale.

Our approach is digital-first but service-led. Customers can get personalised, expert advice before they buy, whether through a phone call with one of our experienced team members or by diving into our video and written guides. After purchase, we keep supporting them with anything from warranty assistance to accessible aftercare. We reinforce this support system in-store with test rides, bike sizing support, and free six-week tune-ups.

The result? Not just satisfied customers, but loyal ones. In retail, loyalty isn’t based on gimmicks, it’s about being genuinely useful to enhance customer satisfaction and build lasting trust.

Listen, adapt, and make it easy

Although in today’s climate price is king, you can have the best product in the world, but if your buying experience is painful, people will go elsewhere now or in the future. So we acknowledge feedback, spotting problems before they become deal-breakers.

Take warranty support. We noticed a pain point: customers were frustrated by the speed of responses. So, we streamlined our internal processes and trained more staff to offer updates on claims proactively. Now we have faster resolutions, happier customers, and a stronger reputation.

Another example is when we introduced a 14-day, free reservation period to address delays in Cycle to Work scheme vouchers and prevent stock issues. This allowed customers to secure their bike while still waiting for their voucher, avoiding frustrations out of their control. Small tweak but a huge impact.

The takeaway here is that if you listen to your customers and understand their pain points, you’ll know exactly what problems you need to fix. And if you fix it, they’ll reward you with their loyalty.

Smart marketing beats big budgets

Marketing a high-value product in a tough economy is tricky. We don’t have unlimited budgets for investment, so we focus on what works:

• Aligning paid media and SEO, focusing on core marketing areas that have proven effective as our largest revenue streams in the past.
• Competitor benchmarking and gap analysis, because knowing what others are doing and being unique helps us stay ahead.
• Email marketing, which is often an underrated tool for remarketing the customer base you’ve already built - at a much lower cost! A well-timed email with an exclusive deal can drive an instant traffic spike and, more importantly, sales.

We have found that clearance deals and exclusive offers sent via email drive immediate sales and significant traffic surges by timing to align with customer shopping habits.

We don’t try to be everywhere, we just make sure we’re in the right places and saying the right things.

What’s next?

Our strategy isn’t about chasing short-term wins. It’s about sustainable growth, which is why we’re forging partnerships with globally renowned brands like Trek and setting the stage for even bigger moves through 2025.

The bottom line is that if you want to survive, let alone grow when times are tough, you need to know your numbers, adapt fast, put customers first, and focus your marketing efforts where they matter.

About Paul’s Cycles

Established in 1983, Paul’s Cycles has served the UK cycling community for the last four decades, across adventure cycling, including e-bikes, mountain bikes, trekking bikes, gravel bikes, and more.

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