Priority Bikes increases conversion by 17% with FenixCommerce

It all started when Dave Weiner couldn’t recommend a bicycle to his friends. They were all looking for the same thing: a bike that’s good looking, not overly technical, light, comfy, easy to ride, easy to maintain, hard to steal, and affordable. So, he did what any rational person would do: he quit his job as CEO of a multinational software company to start his own business.

Okay, it wasn’t that simple. Dave grew up in the bicycle industry and worked for some of the biggest players in the game. As a father of two at the time, Dave also wanted to shift his priorities—rather than spending endless hours in an office, he wanted to spread his love for cycling while also spending more time with his family.

So, on July 15, 2014, Dave nervously hit “launch” on his first Kickstarter campaign for Priority Bicycles. His nervousness turned out to be unwarranted: within hours the campaign hit its initial goal, and by the time it was over, had exceeded it almost 20-fold. Priority Bicycles delivered the 1500 bikes backed during that campaign, and has gone on to grow into a multi-million dollar operation offering 15 models spanning kid’s bikes, cruisers, fleet bikes, and e-bikes.

Dave Weiner | Founder and CEO | Priority Bikes

“While our search for a way to offer our customers estimated delivery dates initially brought us to FenixCommerce, we soon discovered that they could help us implement our unique shipping- and pickup-related rule requirements that were not supported by Shopify….Their around-the-clock support, easy set up, massive back-end configurability, and insightful recommendations were icing on the cake! Fenix is a top-notch partner that we highly recommend for any eCommerce retailer looking to address the thorniest shipping and pickup requirements.”

Like many FenixCommerce clients, Priority Bicycles was initially looking to improve their customer experience with Estimated Delivery Date (EDD) functionality, and connected with us on this use case in early 2020. Soon, however, they came to understand the platform’s ability to handle their complex shipping option rules, which had required a custom implementation since they were not supported by Shopify.

While implementing the FenixCommerce Order Experience Platform’s standard EDDs on their Product, Cart, and Checkout pages, Priority Bicycles and the FenixCommerce Product team realized that the OEP was actually the perfect tool to handle the brand’s complex shipping rules, which they were then processing via complex custom scripts since they were beyond the ability of Shopify’s built-in shipping rules to handle. Some examples of these rules included:

• SKU-level product parameters that the rules needed to comprehend
• Order-value-based shipping costs for some SKUs
• Weight-based shipping costs for some SKUs
• Flat shipping for accessory orders
• The ability to evaluate—based on the SKUs of multiple items in a given order—both item weight and order value to arrive at unique shipping costs for each shipping option offered for the order

Adding to this complexity was Priority Bikes’ requirement to offer to not only ship a partially-assembled bike to a customer’s home, but to ship it to a local bike shop, or deliver it via a white glove mobile delivery service, or to provide contactless pickup at the company’s shop in New York City. The OEP handled all these requirements in stride.