BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Future, the publisher of Cyclingnews and Cycling Weekly, has released its latest figures with Giro, Castelli and Rapha receiving the most clicks throughout November.
According to the publisher, November saw double digit e-commerce growth across both Cyclingnews and Cycling Weekly websites, driving £1.5 million of sales to its global affiliate partners.
Future’s proprietary affiliate engine, Hawk, allows it to send potential customers to cycling retailers every month as a revenue earning strategy.
This sees them promoting other company’s products and receiving a commission for every sale that is made, if the transaction originated from their site.
So far in 2023, Cyclingnews and Cycling Weekly are approaching £12 million of sales to retailers, up 7% year-on-year, across more than 310,000 transactions.
Rob Spedding, Future’s content director for cycling, said: “The cycling market has experienced a huge amount of turmoil in 2023, but our November results, echoing the rest of the year, indicate there is still significant demand from consumers.
“There’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a challenging period for almost everyone involved in the cycling industry. However, Future Cycling is showing that by continuing its mission to create the world’s most trusted buying advice and reviews content, we’re able to deliver real benefits to our partners.”
November’s performance almost matches a successful July 2023.
In the summer, Future’s sites generated £1.54 million of sales to retailers, topping the previous record of June 2021, made at the height of the lockdown cycling boom.
US helmet and footwear company Giro was the most clicked cycling brand over the November period, followed by apparel brands Castelli and Rapha.
In the UK across November, Cyclingnews and Cycling Weekly saw the number of transactions increase by 43% while the average order value dropped by 17%, meaning overall sales order value increased by 15%.
This contrasted with the US market where transactions remained flat year-on-year but average order value grew by 15% as did overall sales order value, suggesting UK consumers are more price-conscious than their USA counterparts at the moment, but total consumption levels are very similar.
Future has also announced it will launch a new quarterly consumer sentiment report in early 2024, BikeTrack Pulse, which will combine qualitative feedback on purchase intent in the US and UK across key cycling categories, with in-depth e-commerce data from its Hawk affiliate engine and online search intent insight from its Audience Development division.
Jess Hamer, advertising director at Future, added: “Given the turmoil in the cycling industry at the moment, we decided to increase the frequency of our annual BikeTrack consumer survey and focus it more closely on shorter term consumer sentiment.
“With the wealth of data we have at our fingertips, we want to help identify purchase trends as they happen, and at a granularity that helps our commercial partners.”
The 10 most clicked cycling brands in November 2023
- Giro
- Castelli
- Rapha
- Garmin
- Shimano
- Wahoo
- Assos
- Oakley
- Endura
- Zwift
