Challenge

When Bikes Online launched in 2011, the company began as a two-person business operating out of a garage in Sydney, Australia. The founders saw an opportunity to compete with traditional bicycle retailers by offering bikes purchased directly from the factory at 30-40% less than traditional retail prices. The direct-to-consumer business initially started as an eBay store and quickly outgrew its early setup.

The success of Bikes Online came with some challenges, including managing physical goods across geographies and delivering a seamless checkout experience. And as the business grew, it became even more critical to have an effective, customizable fraud prevention system. As Bikes Online founders eyed markets outside of Australia, they also wanted solutions capable of supporting the company’s growth, including a localized and seamless payment solution for their customers in each region via a single integration.

Solution

Bikes Online’s mission is to democratize cycling for everyone, so customers from all walks of life have access to quality bicycles. To further their reach, the company’s founders turned to Maropost Commerce Cloud to host its online store. Maropost provided a one-stop solution for inventory management, order management, and shipping labeling. The company also found Maropost to be a valuable partner requiring fewer integrations than other platforms and offering easy-to-use features.

Maropost collaborates with Stripe to provide a seamless checkout and payment experience for customers, resulting in faster checkout times and access to more payment methods, including Apple Pay and Google Pay. Bikes Online also had access to Stripe’s fraud prevention system, Radar, a machine learning-powered tool that leverages Stripe’s vast network to detect fraud with high accuracy. The company opted to use Stripe’s more advanced Radar for Fraud Teams to align its fraud protection with its particular risk tolerance and leverage additional features, such as 3D Secure to shift the liability in disputed transactions from Bikes Online to the card issuer.

Bikes Online used Stripe Atlas to make its goal of global expansion a reality. Atlas helps founders anywhere in the world set up their business in the US quickly with all the essentials, including banking, accounting, payroll, and cloud computing.

Results

Global expansion

Bikes Online kept its momentum in Australia, launched in the US, and scaled quickly as demand skyrocketed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Stripe Atlas enabled Bikes Online to more easily and affordably break into the US market by eliminating the barriers to starting a business as a non-local company, such as opening a bank account and navigating legal requirements. In the US, the company has seen a 10x increase in business since its launch, growing even larger than the original Australian business. During 2020 and 2021, Bikes Online’s overall business tripled, and within just a few years, their staff grew to over 100 people with offices in Sydney and San Diego, California, to accommodate the rapid growth.

As Bikes Online expanded into new regions, the company was able to use the same platform and payments provider, keeping its technology stack light and efficient.

Added customer segments

Bikes Online created a seamless checkout experience that’s faster and features more payment methods, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, which the company uses to target and convert more customers. As the seamless checkout fueled growth, the company’s customer pool broadened from primarily people who were new to the sport to a wide range of buyers, including cycling enthusiasts, people seeking e-bike adventures, and parents shopping for themselves and their children. Across these segments, Bikes Online has continued to pass savings on to customers through its direct-to-consumer model and delivered convenient access to affordable, high-quality bikes.

Fraud optimization

Stripe’s Radar for Fraud Teams provided sophisticated, highly accurate fraud detection and balanced fraud prevention with the company’s risk tolerance, resulting in both cost savings and higher conversion. Bikes Online has saved about $10,000 monthly in each market, and it’s seen an uplift of $40,000 in accepted transactions per month by reducing the expected rate of false positives.

About Maropost

Maropost is a leading unified commerce platform that helps manage business-critical operations, including eCommerce, In-store Retail POS, Marketing Automation and Help Desk Management.