From offering guided tours around Torrevieja, Alicante, to becoming one of the biggest bike rental shops in the area, Online Bike Rental has had quite the journey. The addition of Booqable to their website helped to facilitate online bookings that drove the business forward and helped in success as Spain was led out of lockdown.
Bike rentals are nothing new to us; they are among the most popular industries in the rental business. You’ve probably rented a bike or two in your time too, since having that convenience when on holiday is unbeatable. This hasn’t always been the case, though, and it’s entrepreneurs like Jamey De Neve that make it possible in local communities like Torrevieja.
Online Bike Rental
Jamey De Neve gave guided mountain bike tours around Torrevieja, but he struggled to find suitable rental bikes in his area. He didn’t let this stop him, though, and bought some bikes to rent out on his website alongside the guided tours. He noticed that the demand for bike rentals separate from the guided tours kept growing little by little. This is when onlinebikerental.com was born, and he began delivering to people’s holiday homes.
This entire time, he had been storing over 40 bicycles at his home and described the situation as “in every corner of my house and my shed, there was a bicycle.” This wasn’t an ideal situation, but he had no other choice as he didn’t have access to a shop where he could store them. This was only made worse when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and everyone stopped renting bikes across the world.
Fortunately, he was able to work as a mechanic in one of the biggest bicycle shops in the area to make ends meet. Then, in January this year, he became the shop’s new owner and is now managing the rentals from here. At this time, he reduced the delivery area and allowed customers to come to his store to pick up the bikes they had rented.
Getting online
Indeed, Jamey has quite the incredible story for how his business came to be and how it has evolved over the years, but it wasn’t so easy. Something that he struggled with was finding a way to add online bookings to his website. He searched Google and came across Booqable while researching rental software with an online store. Before he found Booqable, he had some issues as his store was hosted on a completely custom HTML-based site, which he struggled to update.
With the help of Booqable, he was able to transfer his site to WordPress and integrate his products easily into his store.
It made everything easier, and I have a good control of everything; my business was growing together with the fantastic updates from Booqable.
His website is now updated automatically with products added to his Booqable account and any changes he makes to them. In addition, he can offer customers more choices when it comes to booking bikes while they’re on holiday in Torrevieja.
Cycling to success
Despite the difficulties faced during the pandemic and limited supply of new bike parts and bicycles, Jamey has succeeded with his bike rental business. He credits some of his success to the world’s situation, though being trapped indoors led more people to shopping and renting things online.
He has found that he now receives more reservations because of the familiar eCommerce-like order process Booqable adds to his website. As a result, his store can offer a mix of rentals, consumable products, and services in one system that keeps his customers’ orders centralized and makes running his store much more accessible than before the pandemic.
