5 Tips For Buying A Bike Online

Choosing a Bike

March 25, 2019

Hey guys. Dustin here, CEO of sixthreezero. Want to talk to you today about five tips for buying a bike online. Now, there is a lot of bikes available online these days, and it's actually a growing way of buying bikes. It's a growing method for buying lots of things. I think it's important that you focus on certain things if you are going to buy a bike online, so to make sure that you get the right bike for you, and also that you're protected in case you bought the wrong bike for you.

Because we all know even if you buy in the store or you buy online, there's a chance that you'll have buyer's remorse or it won't be the right product, or you just find after you use it it's not what you want it for. Let me get right into it. My first tip if buying a bike online is to read the reviews. I would suggest reading reviews, not necessarily reviews on that particular brand's website, but I would read reviews on external websites.

If this product is available on other seller's, whether it be Walmart or Target or Dick's Sporting Goods, or even if there's an outside third-party review website, something like Trust Pilot which is a brand review website, I would say look for both. Either read reviews on the actual brand and read reviews on the products from that brand. Obviously, Amazon is a great place to read product reviews. Make sure you just scroll through and really sort, find different varying dates, because sometimes at the top it might be real positive. You want to see if there have been any hiccups throughout the lifetime of the product, what kind of issues have people ran into over the lifetime of this product is in the marketplace.

I would say typically don't buy a bike online that's a four star. Sorry. Don't buy any bike that's below four stars. Four stars and above, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that that's a good quality bike. This company manages their problems and their issues well. Anything four stars and below, three and a half, three, 2.5, that's really up to you. In the three and a half star range, if there's value in the product and you think there's a color you really like, or the size is really perfect for you, or it's something really unique and it's a three and a half star, I would say at three and a half star it's still worth taking a chance.

Anything three and a half star or below, I personally wouldn't purchase it online, whether that be any product across any category. Again, if it's something really niche and you can't find it anywhere and it's a three and a half star or a three-star, I would leave that decision up to you. I personally wouldn't do it. It leaves me too liable, I think, for too many problems. My recommendation, read the reviews. Look for four stars and above, three and a half stars on the fence. Anything three and a half star and below I wouldn't do it.

My second tip is to check out the return policy. Obviously, you're buying a bike, there's a lot that goes into buying a bike. You're going to have to assemble it. You're going to have to ride it. You also may or may not have ever even sat on this bike before. You may have gone into a bike shop, sat on something similar, or you may have been able to test ride this particular bike. If you haven't been able to test ride it, you just want to be certain that there's a liberal enough return policy with whatever brand you're buying from that you can send it back and not be held accountable.

We at sixthreezero currently actually have a 365-day return policy. Our goal here is to ensure that you love the bike, and so we're not going to force you to send it back in 30 days. We're not going to force you to send it back in three months. We're just going to want to make sure that you love that bike. If you end up hating it after six months, you can send it back to us.

My third tip for buying a bike online is warranty. Now, return policy and warranty are two separate things. A return policy is really going to protect you in the near-term ownership of the product, and the warranty is going to protect you more in the longer term of the product. Let's say a company has a shorter return policy. You want to know what's your protection past that return policy window. Are they giving you nine months, and then what components are they warrantying?

If you read the return policy and they say I basically warranty nothing except a screw on the back piece of a bike, that's not going to do you much good. I would say key things to look for in the warranty would be the frame. A lot of times steel frames are a lifetime warranty. Aluminum frames tend to be about two years. That would be standard. Anything less than those might be suspect like maybe the company's trying to hide something or they want to mitigate people sending back products or submitting warranty claims, things of that nature.

I would say the general components of the bike typically speaking I would say is anywhere from a year to two years. Typically tires and tubes are not warrantied at all. That's a very difficult thing to warranty because the minute someone takes possession of the bike nobody really knows where they're riding it, where they've gone, what they've done to the tube, did they overpump it, things of that nature. Those are some of the key elements.

At sixthreezero we offer a standard warranty but we offer something called a lifetime warranty. Currently, on our normal bicycles, non-ebikes, that's available for purchase for $19.99. Only available for $19.99 if you buy directly from sixthreezero.com. We're working on offering a warranty for anyone that purchases outside of sixthreezero.com. As it is now, that lifetime warranty is only available if you purchase directly on sixthreezero.com, $19.99. Basically, we'll take care of everything for the lifetime except the tires and the tubes. Again, because of why I just discussed.

My fourth tip for buying a bike online is to check the fit. Now, I know, seems a little weird. How are you going to check the fit of a product you can't sit, touch, things like that, sit on, touch? Well, in this day and age I think with the amount of technology and different measuring tools and specs and things of that nature, I don't necessarily agree that everything needs to be tried on in person. Lots of people, a vast majority of the population I would guess has bought some kind of clothing online before or a shoe, or something like that.

There are ways that you can confirm the fit online by knowing your specs, knowing your dimensions, and also knowing what bike is supposed to fit your body. If the brand doesn't have specific information around which bikes fit your body, you can also Google something like "what bike frame is correct for me," and make sure you're just finding that information on a reputable source. There are lots of bike blogs out there that talk about bike fitting, and there's some really great information out there that can steer you in the right direction.

I would say make sure you just look at that, confirm it and then you can come back to whatever site you're going to shop on, and you know. You're armed with the knowledge to know if that specific bike will be right for your body. At sixthreezero, we actually have something called our body fit tool. You can enter your height and your weight into our body fit calculator and it will tell you thumbs up, thumbs down if that bike is the right fit for your body. It makes it really easy, really simple, and you can quickly know if that bike is right for you or if it's not.

At sixthreezero if nothing fits you, we're actually in the game of customizing. You can always reach out to us directly and we'll find a way to customize a bike to fit your body specifically. Just make sure wherever you buy, that bike's going to be a fit.

Now, my fifth tip, if you're going to buy a bike online, is to call the phone number. It sounds like a very simple tip, but there are lots of websites out there that claim to offer service and their products are great, and you don't really know. I would just say call the phone number. Make sure you can speak to a live person, somebody that can help you. Someone that could process your return. Someone that could process your warranty. This is a big purchase, a bicycle. There's also moving parts. It's something you're going to use a lot.

You just want to make sure that there's a company there to be available to you if you should have questions, needs, concerns, things of that. Now, with less expensive, smaller products, maybe being able to reach a live human being isn't as important, but I believe in terms of a bicycle it's a very, very important aspect to purchasing. Those are my five tips for buying a bike online.

Again, read the reviews, check the fit, check the warranty, check the return policy, and call the phone number. I believe if you follow these five tips you will not make a bad decision when buying a bike online. Now, I can't guarantee you 100% you will get something you'll love, but I think you'll be doing the due diligence at least to protect yourself.

If you have any thoughts, questions, or if you've bought a bike online, go ahead and comment below and tell us about your experience. Was it good? Was it bad? Were there other suggestions that you have for anybody else out there thinking about buying a bike online? If you have any other questions for us at sixthreezero, please email us, theteam@sixthreezero.com, or call us, 310 982 2877. Go ahead and check our website. On the top nav, you can browse our bikes. Please enter your height and weight in our body fit calculator and it will tell you which bikes are a fit for your body. At sixthreezero our goal is to find the right bike for everyone's body.