BikeList (www.bikelist.com) is a dedicated marketplace for new and used bikes, e-bikes, parts, and accessories. CEO Rob Einaudi is an entrepreneur, writer, and former bike shop employee from Bellingham, Washington who wanted to create an online marketplace specifically for bicycles without the “issues”, in his words, of popular online marketplaces like Craigslist and eBay.
Einaudi started BikeList with friends who all bring different skills and backgrounds to the table, united by a love of cycling. BikeList’s website proudly proclaims, “We are not a tech company that will move onto the latest trend in order to grow fast. We’re also not a bike company that outsources development – we are cyclists and engineers. We built our own marketplace platform from scratch which will have social and e-commerce features built for the cycling community and not seen anywhere else.”
The key to BikeList’s current and future success lies in its overall simplicity. Einaudi writes, “With decades of experience building websites, we know that it’s important for a marketplace like BikeList to be fast, simple, and easy to use. We have seen how needlessly complex businesses lead to bloated and buggy software. Keeping BikeList simple, fast, and useful for our buyers and sellers is core to our business.”
It’s easy to set up and post a free listing on BikeList. BikeList members will see your listing through browsing and searching the site or from one of BikeList’s social media accounts. When the buyer purchases your item, BikeList handles the payment with secure credit card processing. The seller will receive an email notification when their item sells. After they enter a valid tracking number for the item’s shipment in their BikeList account, the money is securely transferred to the seller. BikeList charges a 9.9% commission only when the item sells, and their rate is lower than eBay, OfferUp, and many other online marketplaces.
A self-described “Bike Nerd,” Einaudi found inspiration for BikeList in two other specialty online marketplaces, Bring a Trailer for vintage cars, and Reverb for guitars. “We want to bring that same energy and experience to bikes!” he says.
Of course, inspiration and experience are both for naught if trust in the marketplace doesn’t exist, and ensuring that trust is so critical in online sales transactions. To that end, BikeList works with only the most trustworthy financial vendors to handle their customer’s transactions. “We strive to provide personalized service, vet our sellers, and seek out feedback from our community. We use our own product to buy and sell our own bikes and parts and continuously work to make BikeList something to be proud to be part of,” says Einaudi.
As two years of a global pandemic and Asian supply chain disruptions brought into stark light, demand for used bicycles and parts can be very strong when new bikes and components aren’t even a possibility. But even as the supply chain issues have improved, the desire for specialty, vintage, and rare used bikes, parts, and accessories enabled by a fast, trustworthy, and user-friendly online platform remains robust. The future for BikeList looks very bright indeed.
