What is it?

BridgeWorks, Inc. BikeShop Full Throttle is a multi-vendor, electronic motorcycle parts catalog system that can be accessed online for use at your shop by you, your employees or through your own website by your customers.

Say that again?

  • It's a Catalog it contains the wealth of information currently residing in the catalog rack filled to overflowing on your parts counter.
  • It's Motorcycle Parts it is specifically geared to the custom motorcycle industry.
  • It's Universal it contains product offerings from multiple manufacturers and distributors - a one-stop-shop for all your parts!
  • It's Web-based for easy access to moment by moment updates and availability checks with your distributors.
  • It's integrated too it integrates to dealer management systems and creates sales receipts for you and your customers.

How does it work?

When queried, it quickly searches across multiple vendor parts offerings and serves up complete catalog information in an easy to read format. The system organizes the parts by category and includes offerings such as apparel, brakes, carburetors, electrical, wheels and... everything that you can now find in your catalogs!

An example might be a customer looking for a headlight replacement. The counter person would click on the "headlights" category and apply an additional filter information such as "chrome" and the application would search for and display all vendors' parts that meet your search criteria. The items can then be compared side by side and when a decision is made - put it in your shopping cart. At the end of the day, it separates all those orders out by vendor for easy ordering.

What makes it unique?

There is nothing else out there that shows images, install docs, related components and lets you make a more informed decision on which vendor you would really like to purchase from.

What else does it do?

Finding the right part and getting the customer to agree that it's exactly what they want, doesn't complete the sale. The order must still be written-up, processed and the parts delivered to the customer. The BridgeWorks system brings big-time help to complete the sale:

  • It allows the dealer to generate a pick list of parts from multiple suppliers.
  • Parts are consolidated into parts requisition orders for each vendor.
  • An end of day (or any time during) process generates requisition orders for each vendor that can be printed, mailed, faxed, or sent online to the vendor via BridgeWorks.

How it all started

Ms. Cheri Haganey, BridgeWorks' CEO, has been involved with customizing financial accounting systems and the sport of motorcycling for more than 25 years. Not only does she love the sport, she began her first successful business by providing accounting/inventory management systems and consulting to bike shop owners. Years of experience has helped Cheri develop an in-depth understanding of the critical profit and loss elements of the various bike shop operations and she has dedicated her business to helping make her clients successful.

Over time, and through client comments and personal observation, she became increasingly aware of a problem at the bike shops' parts counter. Personnel were having more and more trouble dealing with the wide racks of bound, printed catalogs from a wide variety of manufacturers and suppliers.

Having the choice of so many catalogs, and the fact that the same parts application could be satisfied by a number of vendors, was beginning to cause confusion and frustration. It was also resulting in poor customer service. The blizzard of catalog updates, new product introductions, special offers, and price changes only added to the problem. In fact, she discovered that some shops had just given up on filing updates and simply waited for new catalogs to be delivered. The situation was quickly becoming unacceptable and her clients were losing business.

Cheri noticed other problems with parts ordering. She eventually linked them all to the same bike shop concern - too much information, not enough organization.

She decided that there had to be a better solution and launched a survey among vendors and bike shop owners to find out what they wanted. The responses told her that what was needed was a system that would do a rapid electronic search of multiple vendor catalogs by application, part, or vendor. It should enable the bike shop to "build on-the-fly" and prepare the parts shop list. It should be able to sort the parts by supplier and even be able to prepare and transmit, if arranged, an electronic order for fulfillment.

Cheri's approach to the problem was to start a new, leading-edge software company that would deliver a solution.

The company's first product, BikeShop, Full Throttle is a powerful, multi-featured, easy-to-use multi-vendor motorcycle parts catalog system that is accessed online but then sends the orders to your desktop or even your dealer management system. One observer has called it the most exciting business tool to aid the motorcycle industry since the computer.