Bike rebates pushing sales in P.E.I.
P.E.I. government spends over $325,000 in subsidies since June
With over $325,000 in rebates paid out by the province, P.E.I.’s bicycle and e-bicycle rebates have drummed up plenty of interest and sales for local bicycle retailers.
Since coming into effect in June, many Islanders have used the rebates to enter the world of bicycling and active transportation.
As of Sept. 1, 381 eligible e-bikes and roughly 1,374 eligible bicycles have been sold across the Island, according to a Sept. 8 release from the province.
“There has definitely been an increase in interest,” said Brett Doyle, owner of Outer Limits Sports (OLS) in Charlottetown, which sells a wide range of bicycles such as mountain bikes, road bikes, fat bikes, BMX bikes and even e-bikes, costing anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
Doyle said while there was rising interests in bicycles, the rebates helped tip the scales for outlets that offer bikes that are more expensive than other massproduced bikes in larger retailers.
“Where we’ve probably seen the biggest difference is in customers who may not have considered us in their purchase. Now, the $100 rebate brings us a little closer to the price of a department store bike, but with the quality you would get at our store,” he said.
According to the province’s website, the Bicycle Rebate offers up to $100 on bicycles up to $2,000 before taxes purchased from participating retailers. The rebate is applied after taxes and is handled by the retailer.
Aside from normal bicycles, Doyle said e-bikes have also become very popular.
“It really exploded. There is definitely a lot of interest in e-bikes,” he said. “Everyone who comes in wants to talk about them, wants to try them and see what they are all about.”
Doyle said for OLS, regular bikes remain more popular than e-bikes, simply because of the cost differences – the lowest price for an e-bike listed on Outer Limits Sport’s website is $2,149.99.
However, the cost hasn’t stopped e-bikes from rising in popularity. Braeden Woods, manager of Rising Tide Electric Bicycles in Charlottetown, said sales have been strong throughout the summer.
“We had an incredible influx of sales in August. Things slowed down a little bit in September, maybe because people began feeling the cold, but we’re still doing pretty well,” he said.
Rising Tide specializes in e-bike rentals, sales and servicing. Woods said over the last three months, they’ve sold over 50 e-bikes, with many customers mentioning the rebate as the reason for purchase.
“Some people are coming in specifically because they heard there was a rebate, so it gets people through the door and really helps incentivize them to buy, especially because we can provide the rebate (in-store),” he said.
P.E.I.’s e-bike rebate runs separately from its bicycle rebate and has its own requirements for eligibility. Purchases of e-bikes retailing for $1,200 or more on P.E.I. are eligible to receive $500 off the price.
In the Sept. 8 release, the province said it has made $190,500 in e-bike rebate payouts alone.
For customers, both rebates are painless to deal with and are handled mostly by the retailers if bought in store. However, the two rebates differ drastically for retailers.
The process for getting ebike rebates paid out is easy, said Woods, only requiring the customer to fill out a form. The retailer then puts the bike’s serial number on the form and a copy of the invoice and sends it in to the province.
“Many people are quite surprised (by how easy it is) as opposed to them buying something online and then applying to the rebate themselves and waiting four to five business weeks before they can be reimbursed,” he said.
For regular bikes though, it’s not as simple or as fast.
Like e-bikes, the rebate for regular bicycles is handled by the retailer. However, instead of filing a form to the government and waiting a week or two, Doyle said his business is required to send a monthly report with a tally of all bikes sold and their invoices to a third-party company, which then sends it to the government.
He said it can take up to two months before the business receives payment for those bike sales.
“It’s not a good way to handle it at all,” he said.
“It just takes too long. We are financing the government and the person who got the bike for 60 days before we get paid. Also, the paperwork and the red tape to submit all that, it just seems like an unnecessary burden to throw back on top of us.”
Doyle said he would like to see the rebate responsibility fall on the customer, possibly in the form of a mail-in rebate or online form, which is available for those purchasing e-bikes. Doyle also suggested removing the third-party company from the process and allowing retailers to deal directly with the province.
Outside of redemption issues faced by some retailers, Doyle said the program is going well. He said along with the work the province is doing to improve biking and active transportation infrastructure, the program is just another push for more people to consider travelling by bicycle over car, especially in Charlottetown and the surrounding areas.
“Charlottetown is a perfect city to commute in, because it’s so small,” he said.
“If you were to leave here to go downtown, it would probably be faster to get on a bike to do it than in a car, where you would also have to find a parking spot. So, the better the infrastructure gets, the bike parking and bike lanes, it’s only going to make biking better.”