Local Bike Shop Switching to Substack but the Math Isn't Mathin'

Special email edition here - math! I got an email the other day which triggered me to write this. (Sometimes my ADHD does work out for me.) Read on about attribution and cleaning up your list.

I've been on the email list for a local bike shop since the pandemic. You remember 2020 when everyone was biking or rollerskating? And baking and growing gardens…

I stayed on the list because I like the owner's voice and I like seeing what he has in stock. But his latest email was even more interesting.

He's leaving Mailchimp for Substack. He explained why and it got my Scooby ears to perk up.

This is what he shared: his "Bike Inventory Alert" emails get a 6% open rate. Based on what he pays Mailchimp, that comes out to roughly $3–$6 per person who actually opens the email. His conclusion was that email was too expensive and inefficient.

But his math is wrong.

If you're selling $8 coffee drinks, paying $6 per email open is bad. But he sells bikes, from $150 to $1,500. This is a higher ticket item. The net profit on one bike sale could be a few hundred dollars.

Let's say an email blast costs him $300 to send. He doesn't need an insane conversion rate. He just needs one person to walk in and buy a bike, and that email just paid for itself. It is an online-to-offline attribution issue and a funnel issue.

How people buy bikes - the funnel...

Nobody opens a bike shop email on their phone, clicks "add to cart," and checks out before their morning coffee. What usually happens: someone sees his inventory email, realizes he has the bike they've been hunting for, grabs their keys, and drives to the shop to check it out and test ride it. When they buy, the register logs it as a regular in-store sale. But the source traffic (or attribution) should be the email, which is getting zero credit. That's not an email problem; this is an attribution problem.

His actual problem: the list.

A 6% email open rate is low. For a local shop with a loyal, community-focused following, he should be closer to 30%. But the issue isn't that his customers stopped caring. It's that his list is clogged. He's been building it since 2020, which means it's full of ghost addresses - people who bought a pandemic bike and have since moved, changed emails, or lost interest. Since email platforms charge based on total list size, he's paying to send emails to people who will never open them again. That's what's dragging his numbers down.

The solution: remove anyone who hasn't opened an email in six months. His open rate will go up. His cost per open will drop.

The next thing he should do is match his in-store buyer list against his email subscribers. I'd bet those "expensive" inventory emails are bringing people through the door regularly. He just can't see it. (Attribution is his hurdle.)

Moving to Substack will save him some money on software. But it won't fix the tracking gap.

Takeaway: Clean your list. Match your buyers. Do the math again. And then decide if you still want to switch email providers. (Could be other factors for you but don't let blame email yet.)

Coco's emails are probably working harder than he thinks. He just can't see it yet.

That's the thing about email. You never know which one is the one that gets someone off the couch and walk through your door.