State of the Hub: 2010 Group Photo!

By Josh Lipton Posted in The Archives Tagged with

bike-shop-hub-group-shot-2010-smallIt’s been 3 long, busy weeks since the last State of the Hub, so I’ve got a few things to catch up on. At the same time, we’re quite busy with getting ready for the Christmas push as well as some other projects, so from that perspective, I’ll be keeping it brief.

Our main push at the moment is preparing for the Christmas sales surge. We are preparing for a variety of promotions that we will be partially pushing out through CommuteByBike.com.

In preparing for the sales push, I’ve been focusing on ramping up our Google Adwords program. This has been quite an intensive multi-part project involving the following:

  1. Inputting all of our new BikeBagShop.com and BikeKidShop.com such as Chrome, Mission Workshop, Strider and Bell Helmets into Google AdWords.
  2. Applying a variety of updates and new strategies throughout our Adwords.
  3. Relaunching our campaign with new shipping sale discounts into Australia and New Zealand
  4. Duplicating our Adwords account into the Bing/Yahoo PPC advertising network.
  5. Creating new Adwords Accounts to manage Network marketing.

At the moment, I’m most of the way through the 2nd step. I expect to have the 3rd step along with our shipping deals to Australia and New Zealand by the end of this week. The 4th step may be only a day or 2 and configuring the Network marketing will take at least another week beyond that.

ortlieb=on-white-rimThis week in the Stuff Department:

  1. Our demo area drywall and lighting was completed with lighting installed a few weeks ago. Last week it got painted and the slat wall started getting installed. We just have to finish getting the slatwall installed, get the staircase up to it built and set out out product displays.
  2. Our photo area is still not ready, but Robin should have the photo tent constructed and be ready to start shooting photos soon.

and in Programming:

  1. Frank has successfully moved CommuteByBike.com onto our server. The hacks have been cleaned out and we’ve been testing and optimizing the whole site.
  2. Frank’s been working with Megan on improving some of our accounting processes by pulling our PayPal and QuickBooks data into a Open Office spreadsheet for reconciliation.
  3. Frank’s also been introducing special shipping modules to offer targeted discount rates internationally

and in Manufacturing:

  1. Stu’s mainly focusing on getting the retail area setup. Once the inside section is all put together, he’ll be moving into getting the front awning, bike racks and sign built.
  2. Stu break area is all built out with a solid railing system.
  3. Our finished Load Beds showed up looking quite nice.

and in Shipping & Customer Service:

  1. We’ve building some spread sheet tools in open office to help with our lean inventory philosophy. The tool allows for us to get good visibility on our current and ordered inventory numbers and compares this to our sale/week to help us calculate the right numbers.
  2. We are currently putting together a spread sheet that better alerts us when items are running low and groups the items together so we know when to order more.

tire-walland in Internet Marketing and SEO Strategies:

  1. We are continuing to focus in on getting in rhythm with administration and daily publishing at CommuteByBike.com.
  2. As mentioned above we are focusing on PPC advertising
  3. Getting all of our marketing set up for the holidays is at the center of our efforts.

The Super-Duper Deals:

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