How Upway is introducing e-bikes to the U.S. market

The secondhand e-bike platform launched at the end of 2021 and has expanded beyond its Europe home into the United States in early 2023. The France-based company’s model controls the entire supply chain — buying used bikes directly from the source, inspecting them in its warehouses and then shipping to customers.

In Europe, Upway is available in France, Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands, but the U.S. is a major focus, said Toussaint Wattinne, the company’s co-founder and CEO.

“Clearly, the e-bike market is not at the same maturity level in the U.S. versus Europe,” he said on the Modern Retail Podcast. “As a European company, it was super important for us to actually make sure we were looking at the U.S. as a standalone and from a blank sheet of paper approach, rather than try to copy/paste what has worked in Europe.”

This approach meant that Upway had to understand the needs of the U.S. e-bike shopper — which differed from state to state. Some geographies buy e-bikes for more leisurely rides, others use them for urban commutes. And while delivery people on e-bikes may be widespread in major cities like New York, “in the U.S. today, couriers actually represent probably sub-15% if not sub-10% of that total volume,” Wattinne said.

As a result, Upway has been focused on figuring out a unique marketing strategy that speaks to the U.S. market. The first task was gaining bottom-of-funnel awareness via channels like Google.

Now, the company is looking at other ways to grow its U.S. presence. This includes a new warehouse in Los Angeles. It also means the company can begin thinking about other types of brand marketing.

“As we grew and as we grew confident about understanding our audience,” Wattinne said, “we were able to start going a little closer to the middle of the funnel.”

Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity.

A Carvana-like business model
“I think a good parallel to draw from in the U.S. would be Carvana, where, in the used car space, you do have a very large market leading player that does operate a similarly integrated operation, rather than simply a marketplace without touching the actual products. It’s really been fundamental and quite foundational to Upway’s business to integrate this entire operation. I think the key insight we started from was… [from] a survey that we found before we started the business, which identified that a majority of consumers had considered buying an e-bike. And, a majority of them were concerned about fraud and concerned about quality, and, therefore, [were] not turning to a secondhand product. So there was an appetite to get a good product.”

Diving into e-bike demand in the U.S.
“What we have found in our data and looking at the broader market is that actually penetration — if you could look at it as number of units sold per 1,000 inhabitants — is actually very comparable whether you’re in cities, in the suburbs, in smaller towns or even the countryside. So adoption and product market fit of e-bikes in general [are] very similar, regardless of geography. The use cases might differ. So, in cities, you will look a lot more at commuting use cases, where people just grab a bike to get to work in the morning [and to] get back home. Whereas, in the countryside, for example, there’s going to be a lot more recreational leisure use cases. You have very popular electric mountain bikes in California, in Colorado, for a weekend ride that takes you up the hills with far less effort… So we definitely see different use cases but a similar penetration — a similar adoption — regardless of the geographies. And that also explains why couriers are actually only a small fraction of the entire e-bike market. Out of the million-plus new e-bikes that are sold every year in the U.S. today, couriers actually represent probably sub-15% if not sub-10% of that total volume.”

Upway’s U.S. marketing strategy
“Approaching marketing and getting the brand known in the U.S. is a beast of a challenge, because it’s such a vast country and vast market. Each state might behave differently; consumers in different locations might have different needs and appetites and even media that they look at. So it’s been definitely a big challenge. The way we’ve approached it has been, number one, to focus on very bottom-of-funnel acquisition channels. When we got started, one of our big strengths was being able to deliver nationwide. Regardless of which state you’re in within the continental U.S., we were able to get a bike to your doorstep within 10 days and of superior quality. And so that was a very powerful offering. And so the first thing we did was make sure that we’ve got a very very strong bottom-of-funnel set of channels — in particular, Google Search, Google Shopping, making sure that anyone that is already actively looking for the e-bike of their choice with the best value for money offering would find out about Upway and would be capable and able to buy from us. And then, as we grew and as we grew confident about understanding our audience, we were able to start going a little closer to the middle of the funnel. So we do more and more partnerships — whether it’s with a newsletter whether it’s with other e-commerce companies.”