Steed Cycles

When he’s not blazing trails with his championship winning racing team or volunteering his time to give bike repair seminars to high schoolers, Kim Steed, owner of North Vancouver’s Steed Cycles, manages to run a thriving community-oriented performance bicycle shop.

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Of course, the Web Store integration was also a big plus. We needed something that would automatically integrate with our in store inventory and take the hassle out of monitoring stock and updating our site.

The value for money convinced us that this was going to be the right solution for us. Lightspeed was very competitively priced and as a startup with limited funds, this was really the final tipping point. Lightspeed does everything more expensive products on the market do for a fraction of the price.”

After Funkear deployed the system, they continued to be impressed with its array of features.

“The reporting function is our favourite feature – the sheer number of reports is amazing and it has helped greatly with our sales analysis and choosing what products to stock. The reporting function helps make better decisions by giving us real-time sales analysis by product. This assists us in deciding which stock to purchase and which to drop.”

The system also supports the company’s current requirements and growth plans, especially online.

“Lightspeed has removed the need for us to constantly monitor stock levels and all sales made on the Web Store are sent straight to Lightspeed to be processed and sent out. As we are relatively new, we haven’t really begun to expand our online identity but the feedback we have been getting is that the store is simple to use and looks very professional, which is a testament to Lightspeed and the Web Store team. Web Store integration has allowed us to spend time growing our business rather than trying to work out if we have a product in stock and if we need to remove it from the Web Store.”

With six full-time mechanics and seven salespeople, Steed has over 400 bicycles for sale at any given time and performs roughly 350 repairs per month.

Speaking about the benefits of Lightspeed in a bike shop, Steed has nothing but praise.

“My favorite Lightspeed features are the product images, the reporting module, the customer and product details, and the invoicing screen. Having images of the products is useful when selling items to customers, when items are out of stock, and when printing quotes.”

A key reason in picking Lightspeed was its reliability and stability using Apple hardware.

“I really wanted to change the store’s computer hardware to Apple — no more crashing, virus scans, or relentless re-boots!”

Product Images, Reporting Module, Customer and Product Details and Invoicing Screen are just a few of Kim's favorite Lightspeed features.

How can your business benefit from Lightspeed POS?

Steed also makes extensive use of the reporting module — creating reports about warehouse inventory, sales, and staff performance. The customer and product details, Steed says, allow him to keep close tabs on which items customers are purchasing and follow up with one click.

“My favorite invoicing feature is the ability to see margins in dollars or percentages for each item on an invoice. This allows us to make sure we are covering our costs and taking care of our best customers.”

Since starting Steed Cycles as a small bike shop at the age of 24, Steed’s enthusiasm for cycling has kept his business steadily expanding over the years. When discussing Lightspeed, his enthusiasm is contagious.

“I’m constantly telling friends with businesses, even customers about Lightspeed and our success with it as a platform!”

How can your business benefit from Lightspeed POS?

“Our favourite features are the ability to do quotes, orders and service repair orders all through the system with no extra paperwork required. The email function, mobile point-of-sale options, integration with TYRO for payments and Web Store integration through Magento are all very attractive features as well.

We loved how easy Lightspeed OnSite was to use. We had never worked in retail before and needed something that we could understand but still provided the functionality we required.