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Bike rental software company Bike.Rent Manager has launched a new platform to connect consumers with rental shops, in the hopes of becoming the ‘booking.com of the cycle industry’.
The brand, launched in 2010 and based in London, helps rental businesses manage their entire operation and the new platform offers customers a powerful search function and access to more than 650 bike shops worldwide.
With 10 years’ experience in the Software as a Service (SaaS) industry, Bike.Rent Manager raised more than £750,000 in capital to fund the expansions, which lets cyclists browse and book third-party rental providers in real time, much like online travel agency ‘Booking.com offers for hotels.
Doug Stoddart, CEO of Bike.Rent Manager said: “We are thrilled with the launch of the platform which allows us to directly serve the needs of cyclists. Bike.Rent aims to increase the choice and confidence of users in what they book when they rent a bike. Through our industry-leading Bike.Rent Manager platform, we work with hundreds of bike shops where we run their bike rental fleet management software. This gives us access to exactly how many bikes each shop has, the type of bike and when they are available.
“Our platform, for the first time, combines this technology to provide a searchable and bookable system for cyclists. With over 40,000 bikes across 27 countries, cyclists can search the database to find the perfect bike for them. No longer do they have to find a store online before making a booking by phone, email or online, instead, they can simply use our site.
“But this is really just the beginning – we plan to add thousands of stores over the coming months and years. In fact, we are calling on our growing community of cyclists and store owners to help us grow this community. As we build out the population of stores we will be adding powerful new functionality to benefit both the cyclist and bike store.”
The new platform avoids the issue of users navigating multiple websites, letting them accessing the real-time availability of over 650 bike shops in one place. The stores on Bike.Rent operate the BRM (bike.rent proprietary software) to manage all their bookings.
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With powerful search ability, users can narrow their search by location, date, bike type, bike shop, and specific bike availability.
