Bike shop website: sizing and pickup stops

A commuter who is 170 cm tall does not know which frame size that means, and most charts leave them to work it out. Some charts list frames by seat tube length in centimeters, others use inches, and a few show only small, medium and large with a note at the bottom. The rider then converts a height into a frame name, a step many skip on a phone. Pickup adds a second obstacle. If the store option sits below a shipping address field, a rider who only wants to collect a bike types an address they do not need, then finds the store choice further down the form.

• Does the size chart use the same unit as the rider's height, or must the rider convert?
• Can a rider reach store pickup before typing a shipping address?
• When a bike shows as in stock online, does the page name the store that has it?
• Is the size chart real text, or an image that does not resize on a phone?
• Does the test ride calendar skip the days the shop is closed?

Frame sizing is where a bike purchase goes wrong on a website, because the rider cannot try the bike first. A shop may list the frame by seat tube length in centimeters, the sizes as S, M and L, and the rider's height in feet and inches or in centimeters, depending on the country the shop sells to. The rider has to bridge those systems with no help. Open the size chart on your own site with a height at each end of your range, and count how many conversions you needed. If you needed more than one, the chart leaves the rider to do the conversion, and some will stop there.

Charts that rely on a drawing of a rider on a bike need a width to read on a phone. A table with four columns squeezes onto a small screen and pushes the height column behind a sideways scroll. A rider who sees the frame number but not the height it fits will guess, and a guess is the bike they return. Check the chart at phone width before anything else on the page.

Riders who plan to collect a bike need a store, not a delivery, and the checkout often assumes the opposite. It asks for a shipping address first, then offers shipping and, below it, store pickup. A rider who lives across town from the shop, or who is buying for someone else, types an address that does not matter and then sees a message about delivery to that area. Pickup is the choice that saves the sale, so it should be the first thing a rider sees once a bike is picked. Test this with the store nearest the rider, and see whether the page offers that store at all.

A test ride is the step between a rider who is unsure and a rider who buys in person. It needs a calendar, and that calendar is often a separate tool from the store's opening hours, so the two can disagree. A rider who picks a Monday morning at a shop that is closed Mondays sees open slots, sends the request and waits for a reply that comes the next day. Pick a day the shop is closed and see whether the calendar offers it. Then book the next open morning and confirm the request reaches a visible confirmation, not only a note that it will be reviewed.

Bike stock turns over every season: a new model year, a size that sells out, a store that stops carrying a brand. Each change can leave an old size chart on the page or send a rider to a pickup store with nothing in that size. Run the same commuter size and pickup path after every stock upload and every new model year. Repeat it before the spring season, when more first-time buyers may arrive from a search.