On our way to the 2016 model year “press camp”, Rose took us to their own shop in Munich. Launched late in 2014 it’s designed to help customers who would like to see a Rose bike in the flesh before ordering it online, to get help ensuring they’ve chosen the right spec – or simply to have their bike delivered and set up in the shop or getting their bike serviced. In fact for any Rose bikes order, local customers can choose to collect it for free in the Munich store.
A wide selection of Rose’s bike are on display at Bike Town Munich
Rose have a massive showroom at their Bocholt headquarters and the Munich Bike Town is relatively small in comparison. It features a selection of Rose’s most popular models each with a dedicated iPad enabling customers to choose every aspect of their build, either on their own or with help from the store’s staff. Once the build is chosen it gets transferred to a big screen for final review and ordering. The order then gets sent to the Bocholt HQ and the big is built as production schedules allow and then either shipped back to the store for collection or directly to the customers house.
The small workshop space that prepares customers new bikes prior to collection or undertakes servicing
The store manager told us that they had been surprised at how far customers are travelling to the store including Austria and Switzerland. As you’d expect, many of the visitors had arranged a trip to Munich around visiting the store and ensuring they were choosing the right size and spec before placing their order. This is particularly attractive for less experienced cyclists and I’m not surprised to hear that the store is doing well.
One of the biggest sellers at Bike Town Munich – the Rose X-Lite CRS
The other big seller at Bike Town Munich – the Rose Pro SL
The most popular sellers via the store are the entry level Pro SL, which is also extremely popular in the UK and the X-Lite CRS carbon road bike.
Bike Town Munich also features accessories and it was interesting to see a range of dynamo lights on display. Rose also feature their own clothing, saddles and shoes. They had a very cool 3D foot scanning system that measured your feet in all dimensions and then can choose the best fitting model of shoes (also digitally scanned into the system) from every model Rose stock (from all brands).
Learning about the 3D modelling of feet for choosing the best shoes for you. (Not my feet on screen!)
I think stores like this for direct sales brands are an excellent idea and it was nice to see how Rose have interpreted it for their own customers. You can find out more about the Munich Bike Town here: http://www.rosebikes.com/content/about-rose/the-rose-stores/rose-biketown-munich
Bike journalists mid shop tour
Thanks for reading
Dynamo lights – not something you’d expect to see in your average UK bike shop!
