Unlike the bike industry with its annual colour-way refreshes, new model cycles and the next new “standard”, Bike Hub has retained a largely unchanged look and feature set for a number of years now, incremental improvements aside. And while we’re not the type to propose fixing something that isn’t broken, as the digital world advances and consumer expectations rise, we’ve grown more acutely aware of the shortcomings of our current platform. We know from user feedback that there are many gripes and bugbears that Hubbers have patiently learnt to live with while we’ve endlessly promised “future platform upgrades”. Not to mention the countless opportunities to deliver greater value to our users with new features and services. It’s time for us to up our digital game and deliver a better user experience on Bike Hub. With that in mind, our small team expanded significantly in early 2019, including the addition of two full-time developers which enables us to drive product improvement. The team has quietly been at work building out the new Bike Hub and laying the foundation from which we will more rapidly improve and expand the offering moving into 2020. So what is changing? Not everything thing will be updated, at least not initially. The first phase will see a complete overhaul of Classifieds, a new Home page and an updated look which we’ll carry across the other sections of the site. The core features and look 'n feel of Forums, Events, News & Articles, and Stolen Bikes will remain the same initially. Feature Highlights Fully responsive design Everything you can do on a desktop can be done on a smartphone. Favourites Need to save an advert to revisit later? Add it to your favourites to bookmark it. We’ll also notify you if the price or status changes. Saved Alerts Looking for something specific? Save your search to receive alert notifications when matching ads are posted. Improved Rating System We’ve moved to a simple star rating system and built-in prompts to kick off the feedback process between seller and buyer. Chat Easily communicate with buyers and sellers on any device. Improved category structure We've grouped bikes and components more sensibly while allowing more filtering. How will it affect my adverts? In short, it wont! All your advert data (current and past) will be migrated to the new system and you’ll be able to login with your usual Bike Hub account details. Your trader ratings will also be migrated to the star rating system (Negative rating = 1 star, Neutral rating = 3 stars, Positive rating = 5 stars). All forum data, private messages, events, etc. will remain on the current platform, but you’ll be able to login seamlessly with the same account. While we’re furiously working through testing the new system, as with any new web products and the multitude of browsing devices, there’s a chance some things might not work as expected. We’ll have support channels on hand to assist and our development team will jump into action to address any issues which may arise. What next? We’re in the final phase of development and testing. Over the next two weeks, we’ll be conducting private beta testing with a limited pool of users with the goal to launch the new site within the next month. Beta tester sign up: If you’d like to apply as a beta tester please sign up here. Questions? We’re here to answer any questions you may have. Click here to view the article
