For independent bike shops and e-bike dealers
A CRM for bike shops remembers every rider's bike, size, fit and service history, and tells your staff each morning who is due for a tune up, who has outgrown their bike and who should hear about the new gravel frames first. Clientele reads your POS sales, ranks riders by the value of the next visit and drafts the message for you.
Try it with the sample store or upload a CSV of up to 200 customers from your bike shop POS.
Where bike shops lose the next bike
A serious rider buys a bike every few years, and in between they spend real money on service, wheels, a power meter, shoes, a bike fit and a second bike for gravel. Every brand they follow and every online retailer is in their inbox. The shop that reaches them with the right note at the right moment gets that money. The shop that waits for them to walk in usually gets the flat tube.
Your POS already holds the answer. It knows who bought a carbon road bike in March 2023, who brought an e-bike in for its first service and never came back, who paid for a fit. Nobody has time to dig through it on a Saturday with six bikes on the stands and a line at the counter. A general sales CRM does not help either, because a bike shop has no sales pipeline. It has a few hundred riders who each come back on their own clock.
One rider, three years, six reasons to reach out
Here is what one road rider's history looks like once it sits on a single profile. Each marker is a moment Clientele puts in someone's daily feed, with the reason and a drafted message.
Month 0
New road bike
$5,800 carbon endurance bike, size 56, fitted in store.
Week 6
First service
Cables stretch. A free check now saves a bad first impression.
Month 4
Gear for the season
Bought shoes and pedals but no power meter. Asked about one.
Month 12
Annual tune up
Spring booking before the shop is three weeks out.
Month 20
Gravel curiosity
Joined two gravel group rides. New frames arrive in March.
Month 36
Upgrade window
Drivetrain near end of life. Trade in plus a new bike is on the table.
The Money Feed in a bike shop
Each morning everyone who sells or runs the service desk opens Clientele and sees a short list: who to contact, why today, what the visit or sale could be worth and a drafted message in their own voice. Change a word if you like and send it from the shop number. It takes about ten minutes before the first bike comes off the stand.
The list is ranked by value. The rider on a three year old $9,000 e-bike who keeps asking about the new motor comes before the commuter who needs a chain. You set the rules: weeks until the first check on a new bike, months between tune ups, how long before a regular counts as gone quiet.
Money Feed for Jake, bike shop
Tuesday, 4 clients to contact
Mark Delgado
Platinum client
Mark, it's Jake at the shop. The new trail e-bikes with the motor you asked about landed yesterday, and one is in your size. Your current bike has a good trade in value right now. Want to take it out on Saturday morning?
Sarah Kim
Gold client
Sarah, your gravel bike is at six weeks, which is when cables settle and shifting drifts. Bring it by this week and we'll do the first check on the house. Thursday afternoon is open.
Tom Walsh
Gold client
Lisa Moreno
Silver client
First check after a new bike, the annual tune up, suspension service by hours or months. Riders show up in the feed at the right time with a message and an open slot.
A rider on a four year old bike with a worn drivetrain is closer to a new bike than they think. The feed flags the moment and suggests the step that fits their riding.
Someone asks you to call when the size 54 comes back in. Note it on the profile in five seconds and the feed reminds you the day stock lands.
Tag an arrival by category, such as gravel, e-MTB or road disc. Riders who bought or asked about that category appear in the feed, ranked by what they usually spend.
A short personal check in a week after a big purchase. It is also when they mention the saddle hurts, which turns into a fit booking.
A rider who came in every season and has not been back for a year gets a reason to return that is a ride or a service slot, not a coupon.
A POS receipt says a customer spent $5,800. It does not say they ride 4,000 miles a year, fit a 56 with a 100 mm stem, hated the stock saddle, want to try gravel and have a partner who has been eyeing an e-bike. That is what sells the next bike, and in most shops it lives in the owner's head or on a service ticket in a drawer.
Clientele keeps it on one rider profile: every purchase and service line from your POS export, the bikes they own with size and year, fit notes, riding style as tags, typical spend, notes anyone on staff can add in a few seconds, household members and the full message history. Inventory and work orders stay in your POS. See how client profiles for retail teams are laid out.
Setup
There is no consultant and no implementation fee. Most shops import their customers after closing and open their first Money Feed the next morning.
Download customers, line items and service lines as a CSV from your bike shop POS. If you also sell online through Shopify, connect it directly.
Tell Clientele which column is the customer, the item, the price and the date. The mapping is saved for the weekly import.
Weeks to the first check, months between tune ups, years before an upgrade conversation. Sensible defaults are filled in.
Sales and service desk each get a feed on the phone. The owner sees every feed and which messages turned into sales.
Bike shop owners usually look at four kinds of tools. They solve different problems, and most good shops run two of them.
Kinds of customer software independent bike shops use
Main job
Knows who bought what
Daily list of whom to contact
Service and upgrade timing
Price
Best for
| Bike shop POS | Messaging inbox such as Podium | General CRM such as HubSpot or Zoho | Clienteling platform such as Clientele | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main job | Checkout, inventory, service tickets | Reviews, web chat and texting in one inbox | Leads and deals for sales teams | Personal outreach to the riders who drive revenue |
| Knows who bought what | Yes, as receipts and tickets | Partly, through POS links | Only if you build the import | Yes, with bikes, fit and service on top |
| Daily list of whom to contact | No | No, it answers incoming messages | Tasks you create by hand | Yes, ranked by value for each person |
| Service and upgrade timing | Ticket history only | Campaigns you set up | Custom workflows | Built in, per bike |
| Price | Varies by POS | Quote based | Free tier, paid tiers per seat | From $99 a month billed yearly |
| Best for | Every shop, it runs the counter | Shops that live on reviews and inbound texts | Shops with a B2B or fleet sales team | Shops where riders spend thousands over the years |
If your inventory or service queue is a mess, fix the POS first. If most of your revenue is $15 tubes and kids' bikes, a newsletter is probably enough. Clientele pays off for shops whose margin comes from riders who spend a few thousand dollars over the years: road, gravel and mountain specialists, e-bike dealers and shops with a fit studio.
Clientele suits bike businesses where one customer is worth many visits: independent road and gravel shops, e-bike dealers, mountain bike specialists, triathlon shops and stores with a bike fit studio. Shops that also sell apparel and accessories use it the same way as a boutique CRM, and groups with several locations run it as retail CRM software across stores. Sales and service history come in through a CSV export from your POS system.
On messaging, every rider record carries consent per channel with date and source, and your team only texts people who opted in.
Boutique is $99 a month billed yearly, or $199 month to month, for up to 3 people in one store and 2,500 rider profiles. Brand is $299 a month billed yearly for up to 15 people across 3 stores and 15,000 profiles, with manager views and sales attribution per associate. Every plan includes the Money Feed, rider profiles, the shared inbox and CSV import. The full breakdown is on the clienteling software pricing page, and you can run the demo above on your own export first.
FAQ
The best CRM for a bike shop is one that knows each rider's bikes, not just their receipts. It should keep the bike, size, fit numbers and service history on one profile, remind you when a tune up or an upgrade is due, and give staff a short list each morning of whom to contact. Clientele does that from $99 a month billed yearly.
Most independent bike shops run a point of sale system that handles checkout, inventory and service tickets, plus an email tool for newsletters and group ride notices. A clienteling CRM sits on top of the POS. It reads sales and service history from your export and decides which riders to contact personally, and why.
Bike shops get repeat customers by staying in touch at the moments a rider needs the shop: the first service after a new bike, the spring tune up, a worn drivetrain, a new season of gear, and the point where an upgrade makes sense. A personal text at the right time brings riders back far better than a discount blast to the whole list.
Clientele's Boutique plan is $99 a month billed yearly, or $199 month to month, for up to 3 people in one store and 2,500 rider profiles. Brand is $299 a month billed yearly for up to 15 people across 3 stores. One extra e-bike sale or a handful of booked tune ups a year covers the plan.
No. Keep your POS for checkout, inventory and service tickets. Clientele does not ring sales or schedule the workshop. It imports the sales and service records your POS exports and works on what happens next: who is due for service, who is ready for a new bike and which messages turned into sales.
Yes. In Clientele you set the timing once, for example a first check 6 weeks after a new bike and a tune up every 12 months. When a rider reaches that point they appear in the daily feed with a drafted message, which your staff send from the shop number by text, WhatsApp or email to riders who opted in.
Upload a customer and sales export from your bike shop POS, or start with our sample store. In under a minute you see who to contact first, the reason, what the sale could be worth and a message written for each rider.
Plans from $99 a month billed yearly. Subscriptions only, cancel at the end of any period.