Tandem Group reports 11% growth in FY24 revenues

West Midlands-based Tandem Group, with cycling brands Dawes, Claud Butler, and BikeBiz Bike Brand of the Year 2024 winner, Squish, amongst its portfolio, has reported an 11% growth in FY24 revenues.

The business, an importer, distributor, and retailer, with brick-and-mortar space under the Electric Life name, has also bucked the industry trend in a second category – reporting “Sales of premium Squish children’s bikes surged by 69% year on year.”

A shifting retail landscape has presented both challenges and opportunities. Embracing change and opportunities, Tandem Group is amongst the early movers in listing bikes on the Decathlon website – a move sure to deliver an increase in visibility, making sales growth a real possibility, given the amount of traffic the French sports business drives.

For BikeBiz this combination – overall revenue growth, and a children’s bike sales surge –  represents particularly encouraging news. Attracting and encouraging new people to ride bikes is absolutely critical to both the here and now and the long-term future of our industry.

Children’s bike sales: Investing in the future. A double win indicator.

1. Parents buying children bikes represents a critical introduction to life on two wheels for future generations of cyclists. We – the collective industry – share a key responsibility here, taking ownership of creating conditions conducive to growing future customers. Nothing says Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – a key retailer metric – quite like children’s bike sales.
2. Supporting and encouraging activity is a critical future business element – falling activity levels, something which Michelle Smyth from WFSGI spoke to BikeBiz about in a recent interview – both for children and adults, represent a future business threat of note.

A shift in landscape. People, not cyclists. Wider trends.

One area where Tandem has followed the UK industry trend is e-bikes. In this sector, the business “saw a comparative decline of 8%.” However “this was more than offset with 39% revenue growth in mechanical bikes.”

In the past six months, the business has added Dashel and VanMoof to its offering, becoming the exclusive UK distributor for both brands, with both focused on the urban mobility/cycling as transport audience.