Bike Club — Scaling Kids' Bike Subscription From UK to Germany with circuly

Bike Club was founded with a simple but powerful mission: make kids’ bikes more sustainable, affordable, and hassle-free. Every parent knows the pain — children outgrow bikes quickly, and buying a new one every 12–18 months is costly and wasteful. Bike Club turned that problem into a solution: a flexible monthly subscription that grows with the child. Families pay a small monthly fee, choose the right-sized bike, and when the child grows, they swap it for the next size up.

After rapid success in the UK, Bike Club looked into expanding to other locations. Germany was identified as the next launch market, thanks to its strong cycling culture, large family market, and deeply rooted sustainability mindset.

The result? Within months, they were seeing rapid adoption, with thousands of German families joining the service.

1 in 5 kids bikes in Germany are provided by Bike Club - James Symes | CEO & Founder @ Bike Club

But what did they do on the ground — and strategically — to ensure smooth operations and business success?

The Customer.

In 2022, Bike Club expanded to Germany to bring their proven kids’ bike subscription model to a new market.

The Challenge.

Entering a new market meant more than replicating what worked in the UK. Bike Club Germany needed to design operational processes around core functions like swaps, returns, refurbishments, and payments — in a way that would allow them to scale efficiently without overwhelming their team or resources.

The Solution.

From the start, Bike Club Germany partnered with circuly to run their entire subscription backend. circuly powers the business across customer-facing and internal workflows — from recurring payments and swap automations to return coordination and renewal management. circuly gives the Bike Club team the flexibility to adapt and refine their model without needing to build their own tools.

The Benefit.

With circuly, Bike Club Germany can scale their operations without added complexity. Processes are automated, data is centralised, and the team can manage subscriptions, identify issues, and respond quickly — all from a single platform. The result: smooth internal workflows and a customer experience that stays consistent, even as the business grows.

"We don’t rush to scale. We focus on getting our operations right first — swaps, refurbishment, customer experience. That’s what sets the foundation for growth for us." Franz Niebler | Digital Operations Manager @ Bike Club Germany

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We interviewed Franz Nieber, Head of Digital Operations at Bike Club Germany, to dive deeper into their local operational strategy. If you're interested in the full case study, sign up for the waitlist to get access to the full case study when it is live here.

Bike Club Business Model

The business model of Bike Club is elegantly simple: families subscribe to a bike and swap it for a larger size as the child grows.

• Flexible Monthly Subscription: Parents pay ~€6–18/month depending on bike size.
• Seamless Swaps: Families can swap for the next size up; minimal fees if swapped early, otherwise free after a typical growth cycle.
• Insurance: Standard wear & tear is included in the subscription; no extra insurance is offered.
• Duration: In Germany, the minimum subscription is 9 months. After that, subscriptions are monthly cancellable.
• Options After 9 Months: Families can return the bike, swap for the next size, or continue subscribing.

But to enable and maintain that simplicity, Bike Club Germany built a highly strategic operational system centred on three key pillars:

Three Operational Pillars Behind Bike Club Germany

1. Swaps & Upgrades

The swap process is designed to be effortless: the new bike is delivered and the old one collected in the same doorstep visit. For parents, there’s no downtime, no hassle — just a smooth upgrade.

2. Refurbishment & Repair

Every returned bike is rigorously refurbished. Mechanics clean, repair, and replace worn parts to prepare bikes for their next rider. This ensures that each bike generates value multiple times across its lifecycle — supporting Bike Club’s circular economy promise.

3. Retention

The model is designed for long-term relationships. Families stay with Bike Club for years, cycling through multiple bike sizes. Low fees, flexible cancellations, and simple swaps encourage loyalty and maximise customer lifetime value.

Tech and operations behind the scenes

Bike Club’s experience feels smooth for parents, but it’s powered by a sophisticated stack:

• Shopify: Running the storefront and customer browsing experience.
• Stripe: Handling recurring payments, cards, and local payment methods.
• circuly: Managing the core subscription logic and all the subscription operations— from sign-ups to swaps, billing to the self-service portal where families schedule upgrades.
• Salesforce & Klaviyo: Powering customer support, email marketing, and business reporting.
• Dedicated refurbishment & warehouse teams: In Germany and the UK, ensuring bikes are rapidly processed and redeployed.

This tech ecosystem lets Bike Club focus on customer delight, not back-end complexity — a powerful lesson for any brand exploring a PaaS model.

Operations Where circuly Supports Bike Club

Behind Bike Club’s family-friendly subscription promise is a complex set of operations — all automated and streamlined through circuly.

Enable & Automate Swapping of Bikes

Swaps are core to Bike Club’s value proposition — and circuly ensures every step runs automatically:

• Customers initiate swaps directly in the self-service portal or via Bike Club’s support team.
• circuly creates the return order, sets up the new subscription, and cancels the old one.
• All communication and confirmations are triggered automatically, ensuring parents stay informed without adding workload to the team.

Centralise Payment Management

Managing payments at scale is critical for profitability. With circuly, Bike Club can:

• Charge recurring payments automatically each month.
• Generate and send associated invoices at scale.
• Retry failed payments automatically and surface the reason for failures.
• Manage everything end-to-end from one system, ensuring smooth cash flow and accurate records.

Automate Reactivations Without Manual Follow-Up

Sometimes customers initiate a return but don’t send the bike back — or they change their mind. circuly automatically reactivates these subscriptions:

• No manual chasing, no support ticket required.
• Subscriptions remain accurate and active.
• Internal workload is reduced while customer experience remains seamless.

Prevent Fraud & Manage Risk Proactively

Subscriptions open up new risks — from long product lifecycles to recurring payments. circuly helps Bike Club mitigate fraud across the entire journey:

• 🛒 Basket logic: Flags unusually large or suspicious carts.
• 📊 Credit checks: Verifies customer creditworthiness before approval.
• 🔁 Automatic retries: Recovers most failed payments without manual effort.
• 🧾 Dunning & debt collection: Escalates overdue cases when necessary.
• 🔄 Swap logic: Prevents exchanges until returns are properly received.

Execute Retention Strategies from One System

Reducing churn — especially seasonal dips like winter — is key for Bike Club. circuly enables targeted retention campaigns such as:

• Offering customers the option to keep their current bike at a discount or swap into a new one.
• Applying temporary reduced pricing automatically and reverting to standard pricing afterwards.
• Reactivating subscriptions in one click, without manual intervention.

This flexibility allows Bike Club to design, test, and execute retention strategies directly in circuly — with no additional systems or manual work needed.

Lessons for brands exploring product-as-a-service

Bike Club shows how a subscription model for physical products can thrive, provided it’s built on:

Asset utilisation: Each bike serves multiple families, dramatically improving return on investment.
Seamless customer experience: From sizing tools to doorstep swaps, it’s all designed to keep parents happy — and paying.
Strategic financing: Mixing equity to fund growth with debt to fund assets keeps expansion capital-efficient.
Robust tech & ops: An integrated stack ensures everything runs smoothly, from billing to bike tracking.

It’s a compelling playbook for any brand considering a shift from one-time sales to recurring revenue. Whether you’re in bikes, appliances, or furniture, the fundamentals hold true: own your operations, maximise asset life, and keep the customer at the heart.

Conclusion

Bike Club didn’t just rethink how parents get bikes for their kids — they redefined what a circular, subscription-based model can look like for physical products. By focusing on durable assets, building local refurbishment operations, financing inventory wisely, and running everything on a seamless subscription tech stack, they created a business that scales across countries while staying operationally lean. For any brand considering a product-as-a-service model — whether it’s in furniture, appliances, or other consumer durables — Bike Club’s journey is packed with lessons on how to structure, finance, and grow a subscription business that keeps customers coming back and assets working for years.