The world of cycling is changing constantly, with numerous brands and retailers selling bicycles and accessories across the globe. As Pon we are now the leading entity within this industry and, subsequently, it is of paramount importance that we are aware of the changes in this market. Therefore, we further developed and professionalised the Bicycle World Map (BWM) in cooperation with Pon Bike. This dashboard provides insights in the dealer landscape of around 80 different bicycle brands. This will make it more convenient to monitor competitors, spot trends and identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for your own dealer network.

The main challenge of this project was to map all dealer locators to one truth. We started the project with scraping the dealer locators of all 80 different bicycle brands. However, different brands name and identify (address) the dealers differently (e.g. Janssen Bikes vs Janssen B.V.). We solved this problem using the Google Maps API. With this API we were able to match each of the stores in our data set with their corresponding Google Maps listing. This allowed us to map dealers together and gather additional information about each store, such as its structured address, phone number, and google reviews. More importantly, the matching also allows us to determine which brands each store sells. This information is used as a base to create a comprehensive overview of all unique bicycle stores in the world, and the brands that they sell.

The BWM allows you to compare different brands and to zoom in on the dealer landscape in different countries and regions. In addition, we gathered demographic information for Germany, the Netherlands & the USA, to create the opportunity to further investigate potential dealer locations. Finally, since we now know which stores sell what brands, we are also able to create insight in which brands are often sold together in each country. The BWM will be updated Quarterly and therefore, from next quarter onwards, you are also able to spot trends.

For additional requests, questions or access, please contact Koen Haenen or Tom Klaver.

Note: This article was written with the help of ChatGPT. Curious how that works? Try it out yourself at https://chat.openai.com/.