GenX: Ebike market dynamics by OlenaZagrobska

Gen-X and Baby Boomers Take to Two Wheels

One of Edinburgh’s biggest and most trusted bike specialists has seen a huge rise in e-bike sales – with the baby-boom and Gen-X generations driving the charge.
And it’s not just environmental concern, or the rising cost of motoring that is persuading those in their 50s and early 60s out of their cars and into the saddle – it’s convenience!
The employee-owned Edinburgh Bicycle Coop, which has been supplying and repairing good quality bikes to the people of Edinburgh for approaching 50 years, has seen a rapid rise in the ebike market in the past couple of years.
Sales of the machines, which start at around £2500, now make up around 50% of total revenues with older customers making up the lion’s share of sales. That compares with a little more than 10% of revenue just five years ago.
Olena Zagrobska, marketer from the Bike Coop, said:

We still sell more traditional bikes – road bikes, mountain bikes and so on – than we do ebikes, but the gap is closing all the time. And the ebikes do now make up about half of our sale revenues.—Olena

It s marketing stats on ebikes and non-ebike sales items sold comparison for 2018-2019 years and 2022-2023

And we can see the growth of the Ebikes popularity in Google search.—Olena

Google traends for the search term ebike in the UK for the last 5 years

Ross Howieson, of Edinburgh Bicycle Coop, said also:

But what has really surprised us is the main driver which appears to be behind the change. A great many of our customers simply believe that they will get around the city quicker on an ebike than they will by car, and with far fewer problems of parking. It’s not just about congestion either, although that’s clearly a big factor, with the new, lower speed limits also impacting the driver’s ability to get about the city faster.—Ross

In a city built on seven hills (Castle, Corstorphone, Craiglockhart, Braid, Blackford, Calton and Arthur’s Seat), it’s perhaps unsurprising that bikes with pedal assist and an electric motor are increasingly popular with those who may otherwise be more reluctant to rely on pedal power.

A lot of the people we see have thought long and hard about the decision to shift. Some of them haven’t been on a bike for some time, but the knowledge that while they will still have to pedal, they will have the help of an electric motor, seems to be the deciding factor.—Ross

The company’s own rise in sales is in line with market research throughout the UK and Europe which shows increasing sales driven by ebikes, with an estimated 5% of the population already convinced and up to 40% claiming that they would cycle more if they had an ebike.
Global projections for the ebike market demonstrate the explosion in popularity. The website ebicycles.com says 300 million are estimated to be in use this year – up by 50% from just four years ago.

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OlenaZagrobska

Member since Dec 20, 2023
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