BikeMarket.

BikeMarket is an online marketplace for used bicycles that actively eliminates trade with stolen bikes and alleviates bike theft.

Omschrijving

Over 800.000 bikes are stolen each year in the Netherlands (and only 1 in 8 is reported), and Rotterdam is a big part of this issue. At the same time, there is no modern, sustainable and law-compliant online marketplace for buying or selling used bicycles. BikeMarket is a cure to both problems.

Our goal is creating a responsible and commercially sustainable virtual marketplace for used bikes.

The key features (aside of user-friendliness - lacking in all currently available bike trade methods) will be:
1. Only selling verified bicycles (auto-search system connected to the database of stolen bikes and bike storage databases);
2. Only selling bicycles from verified users (ID check is required to sell a bike), so every bike sold over BikeMarket is traceable to previous owner;
3. Receipt issued with every sale, so the municipality can enforce the "receipt-required" law;
4. Simplify people's connection with authorities and reporting a bike theft;
5. Cash-free trade.

Sociale relevantie

1. Build a strong barrier for thieves to resell stolen bikes, and thus eliminate the number of stolen bikes in the streets due to lowering motivation for stealing;
2. Formally legalize the already existing grey trade and improve the trace-ability of thieves and former bike owners;
3. Simplify people's communication with authorities in case of losing a bike, and so dramatically lower the rate of unreported theft;
4. Increase the awareness about this issue;
5. Support circular economy.

Innovatie

There is no user-friendly marketplace for reselling of used bikes, although there are almost as many used bikes sold as new bikes.

The key innovation, however, is a connection to the publicly available databases and encoded support of law. None of the current methods of reselling (e.g. facebook groups) issue receipts, verify origin of the bicycles and register previous owners.

In connection to authorities, BikeMarket is a priceless tool for the honest, and a mighty weapon against thieves.