BikeExchange Appoints Former European Head as New CEO
Melbourne, Victoria
BikeExchange has promoted its Group Chief Operating Officer, Ryan McMillan, to the role of CEO, elevating the man responsible for the European operation that is now a blueprint for the organisation’s global activities.
The online bike goods retailer announced the appointment in a video call for its investors on 31st August, a presentation the company used to reiterate how the European model is now guiding its operations in other countries.
Ryan was the BikeExchange Head of European Operations and continues to be based in Germany, where he will head the Melbourne-based company.
BikeExchange’s non-executive chairman, Gregg Taylor, said Ryan has been an extremely valuable member of the team for many years.
“He started our European business and has been a shining light of the global operations. Over the last six months he has stepped up to the COO role and has really led in the day-to-day operations of the business,” Gregg said during the video call.
“Off the back of that input and his contribution to the strategic planning we put together, Ryan was the obvious candidate.”
Company founder and acting group CEO Sam Salter said: ““A key focus for us for FY23 is to replicate that European operating model, the e-commerce first operating model.
“The European team has created some real efficiencies around getting sellers’ products onto the sites in a really efficient way and then driving them, the e-commerce conversion once the products are live and exposed on BikeExchange.”
Sam is now stepping back to his role as head of strategic partnerships.
Investors on the video call were told Ryan and new director Dominic O’Hanlon would be undertaking an investor roadshow during September.
In addition, current finance business partner Kathy Kotsiopoulos will act as interim group CFO, replacing Andrew Demery who is leaving the company near the end of this month.
Kitzuma Expansion
Kitzuma, the bicycle delivery and assembly service purchased by BikeExchange late last year, recently announced it has established new warehouses in two US cities, Asheville and Salt Lake City.
The company confirmed last month it is working towards establishing another two warehouses, in Denver during the next few months and Southern California within the next calendar year.
Sam told the video call audience: “We’re really excited to further integrate Kitzuma and BikeExchange into America and really service that online consumer, from research, to transaction to delivery.”
As a bike retailer here in Australia, I was a little surprised when they announced to me in August that their exciting new program was to drop our existing listing program for the bikes we list on BikeExchange and start selling bikes for us through their portal. As a retailer, we have a lot of responsibility to order, build, floor, fit, offer test rides, and maintain bikes for clients, plus all the other offerings along the lines of equipment and advice. They were offering to “only take 8% margin in each of our sales” for their small contribution compared to ours, so we closed our account. They’ve recanted and “postponed” their rollout of this program I’ve been notified, but their push to take more from retailers every couple years without offering any real value to my clients’ purchases leaves a real sour taste with me, so we’ll work more on our key offerings and spend that money on building our internal capabilities for marketing instead. I don’t have much patience for tech companies that find ways to scrape money off hard-working industries without improving the industry they are serving and never get their hands dirty.
Will be very interesting to see this Australian Success story evolve on a global scale, hopefully in a positive direction under a new CEO.
Massive losses [$14M] on a “record” year of revenue of $6.5M in FY22, a dramatic fall in share price from an IPO of 25 cents to 2 cents today and a high operating base cost means there is a really steep road ahead for even the most experienced management team.
They no doubt position and value themselves as a tech company but are evolving to an e-retailer and even brick and mortar retail business [in Colombia] where the valuation multiples on revenue are not as generous for new investors to consider.
I would imagine they will have to massively increase revenues in the short term or start to shed costs in line with the revenue trajectory of the business to remain worthy of investors continuing to invest capital.
Whether there are the same limitations or resistance to growth in international markets as they would face in the Australian market remains to be seen.