Customer opinion: From pharmacies to wine merchants, the business magazine Handelsblatt identified the best stationary retailers in 300.000 categories from more than 54 customer opinions. Number one in the bicycle trade: the dealers of the ZEG.
Even though bicycles and e-bikes are allowed to experience a big boom in times of Corona, the last 14 months have also been a difficult time for stationary bicycle dealers, full of unprecedented challenges.
The survey by the Handelsblatt in the year of the pandemic was all the more exciting in order to determine the best specialist dealers in Germany according to customer opinion. “The best” were determined from more than 54 customer opinions in 300.000 specialist trade categories. In the category of stationary specialist trade "bicycle shops", Germany's ZEG dealers were able to top spot to back up. With 13,9% acceptance a clear lead – which becomes all the more clear when you consider that the fourth-placed company, Zweiradcenter Stadler (11.7%) and Das Radhaus (8,9%), also belong to ZEG (Zweirad-Einkaufs-Genossenschaft based in Cologne).
ZEG had obviously managed to give its customers a positive shopping experience by dealing with the pandemic confidently, with click & collect solutions, telephone advice and effective hygiene concepts.
In 2020 and 2021 it was supposedly easy to sell bicycles and e-bikes because the demand was particularly high, but the enormous demand also increases competition and customers buy where they feel they are in best hands with service and advice.
Especially when it comes to service quality, the ZEG can position itself as a pioneer. For example with the concept of TÜV-certified quality workshop, which demands the highest standards in the workshop from dialog acceptance to invoicing and is audited annually by TÜV Nord. More than 100 ZEG specialist dealers already meet the strict standard of the quality workshop.
Joachim Stumpf, Managing Director of the BBE retail consultancy, emphasizes in the Handelsblatt that this is the only right way - also when it comes to online trading: "Mediocre is no longer possible!"
Expert advice on sports and fitness is available in specialist shops. Many people who haven't been on a bike for years or who were less active have rediscovered outdoor and individual sports during the pandemic - above all the e-bike. Digital shopping concepts have become enormously important: Advice via video, for example, or even live shopping, which is particularly popular with younger people.
"Consumers did not hold back in retail during the pandemic - on the contrary," adds Joachim Stumpf.
Incidentally, 88 percent of those surveyed replied that the pandemic had made it more important for them to support local retailers than it was before - 43 percent were even willing to spend more money on it.
"A modern bicycle retailer is now a mobility expert. They not only advise on the purchase of bicycles and e-bikes. They are leasing and financing consultants, service partners, and providers of sharing and rental options," says Franz Tepe, Marketing Director of ZEG, describing the diverse cosmos of a specialist retailer of Europe's largest bicycle purchasing cooperative with around 1.000 associated specialist shops.
Click here for the article on handelsblatt.com and the complete results of the survey.