Founded in 2009, Winter Park Cycles is a destination for cycling enthusiasts seeking premium equipment and expert service. Owner Ward Bates and his team operate a specialty bike shop that balances local retail operations with a growing national online business, serving customers in their Central Florida location and shipping across the country.
As online sales grew to represent up to 80% of monthly revenue, managing two separate commerce solutions from Lightspeed (Retail for in-store, eCommerce for online) became a constraint. Winter Park Cycles needed to streamline their operations while continuing to support the core functions of their business model, including custom builds, complex repair workflows, and special orders.
They migrated to Shopify's unified commerce platform and integrated WorkMate from Teifi Digital to meet these demands. Since making the switch, Winter Park Cycles has seen:
- 2X projected sales growth within one year based on first 90 days since migration
- $600,000 in sales processed with zero chargebacks across nearly 1,000 orders
- Record sales month achieved within 90 days of going live on Shopify
- Real-time Google Ads synchronization enabling flexible promotional pricing strategies
The Challenge: Dual systems constrain growth
While Lightspeed Retail and Lightspeed eCommerce were technically integrated, they remained fundamentally separate products. Although Lightspeed Retail maintained inventory automatically, Ward still had to manually publish products to the ecommerce platform and then add content and descriptions for each item they wanted to sell online. The system's hardware-dependent architecture created additional constraints, with all inventory management running from "one hard drive on our computer," according to Ward—a limitation that became increasingly problematic as online sales grew to represent 60-80% of monthly revenue.
Managing the extensive variations across their product catalog was another challenge. "One pair of shoes can have six colors, and then you've got 12 sizes," Ward explains, describing the complexity of variant management for specialty cycling products.
Marketing integration was another area of friction. Product feeds to Google Ads required middleware connectors, adding complexity and limiting the team's ability to execute nimble pricing strategies. Without direct synchronization between the retail system and advertising platform, running promotional campaigns meant uncertainty about whether ads would accurately reflect current pricing and inventory availability.
As Ward began evaluating alternative solutions, he had to ensure they met the needs of Winter Park Cycles' business model, which relies heavily on work order management for custom bike builds, repair services, and special orders. Lead times for specialty parts can be months, meaning that meticulous tracking is essential from purchase through fulfillment. When a part finally arrives among hundreds of other orders, the team must be able to instantly identify which customer it belongs to and what bike build it's for. Managing this level of complexity across both in-store and online channels demands sophisticated back-office technology.
Another concern about migrating was that Lightspeed handled critical accounting functions automatically for the business, including daily sales postings, cost of goods sold (COGS), and purchase order syncing to QuickBooks Online. Losing this automation would have meant hours of manual accounting work each week. Still, Ward was determined to find a solution that was better aligned with his goal of streamlining the business while continuing to scale
The Solution: Refreshed commerce stack unifies commerce and streamlines operations
Ward knew Shopify could unify online and in-store sales, but he had gaps to close when it came to work orders, emphasizing how "We need that paper trail." The solution was an integrated stack pairing Shopify POS with WorkMate from Teifi Digital.
A unified stack: Shopify POS + WorkMate
WorkMate is an app developed by Shopify Platinum Partner Teifi Digital. It allows retailers to create and manage work orders, track purchase orders, manage vendor relationships, and receive incoming inventory, all directly within Shopify POS.
Shopify does the front end very well. WorkMate fills that middle role—the hands-on workhorse—and then if you can push it to your accounting system, you're done.
Ward handled the migration to Shopify on his own. He built a test site, migrated the store's 15,000 SKUs, and configured WorkMate's bike-shop features. The project moved from concept to live in seven weeks. With their new setup, Winter Park Cycles unified their sales channels and addressed their concerns around disjointed service and work orders all at once.
With Shopify and WorkMate, the team can create a service order, attach required parts as special orders, and send an itemized invoice with one click. Customers pay before pickup and see a clear, professional breakdown. "By the time they come to pick up their bike, they've already paid and they see an itemized bill," says Ward, highlighting how the transition helped not only remove friction but build more trust with customers thanks to the improved user experience.
Backoffice automation: Accounting, inventory, and catalog management
WorkMate connects to the Shopify embedded app Bookkeep, an accounting automation and sales tax compliance solution, to recreate and improve upon the automation the team previously relied on. Purchase orders created in WorkMate flow to Bookkeep and appear in QuickBooks as bills. Bookkeep posts daily journal entries for sales, cost of goods sold (COGS), and deposit reconciliation. Monthly sales tax filing and payment remittance are automated across all states where Winter Park Cycles operates. This end-to-end financial workflow runs inside Shopify Admin, delivering real-time visibility into vendor spend and inventory costs without manual entry.
Custom frames and long-lead items now have traceability from purchase through fulfillment. When an online order arrives for an out-of-stock item, staff create a linked purchase order in WorkMate, track receiving, and fulfill with the audit trail intact.
The speed and simplicity of unified commerce
Shopify's native Google Ads integration removed the somewhat complicated middleware that previously created uncertainty around promotional campaigns. In the past, product feeds required third-party connectors or "conduits" that added complexity and meant the team couldn't be fully confident whether advertised prices reflected current inventory or pricing. With Shopify, that friction disappeared.
"When we launch a sale today, our prices update and hit Google almost immediately and then we start seeing sales come in," says Ward. "If we drop a price low enough, we'll sell it that day." Knowing ads will sync in real time has transformed how Winter Park Cycles approaches pricing and allows them to test new strategies with confidence.
Shopify helped remove constraints of the past. "We don't have to maintain multiple product listings," says Ward. One product entry publishes across every channel—online store, in‑store POS, and mobile checkout—with inventory, pricing, and details syncing in real time. That removes duplicate catalogs and keeps information consistent wherever customers shop. Loyalty and store credits work across channels, and unified profiles show complete purchase history, which helps simplify operations and reporting.
Despite spending 15 years on Lightspeed, the team adapted quickly.
It was surprisingly easy transitioning to Shopify. Other than a minute or two here and there trying to figure out where something was. We haven't lost any sales or had any interruptions. We haven't missed a beat.
The Results: Record sales and an aggressive growth trajectory
Within 90 days of launching on Shopify, Winter Park Cycles already saw significant growth. "We had our best month ever last month, which is great especially with it being more of a down market right now," says Ward. "Some of that was a sale that we ran, but we were able to do it with the new tools that we've got and keep track of everything."
The momentum has Ward projecting aggressive growth. "I honestly think we will double our sales in the next year," he says. "And I think that's a conservative estimate based on what I've seen just from the three months on Shopify."
Online revenue now represents 70-80% of monthly sales during peak periods, supported by operational improvements that made scaling online commerce manageable for the lean team of four. "Our traffic has just gone up and up and up," says Ward, crediting improved reporting with providing visibility into demand patterns that inform buying decisions.
Payment security has exceeded expectations. "We haven't had one chargeback out of 700 orders in the last two months," says Ward, noting the figure has since climbed to nearly 1,000 orders. "I think Shopify's fraud notification system does a much better job screening ahead of time" compared to their previous payment processing setup.
The self-implementation approach delivered substantial cost savings. "I have a background in web design and database management, so we were able to tackle the Lightspeed to Shopify migration in-house. However, if I was doing it at my old design day rates, it was probably a $150,000 project from beginning to end," says Ward, factoring in design, data migration, and integrations. While he was able to save that cost by handling the migration himself, he notes that the results Shopify delivers are worth it either way. "It would've been worth the cost even if I wasn't able to do it myself," he says.
By replatforming to Shopify and integrating WorkMate, Winter Park Cycles has eliminated operational constraints that previously limited their growth. The team now has real-time visibility across channels, streamlined inventory management for 15,000 SKUs, and the ability to execute promotional campaigns with confidence. These capabilities simply didn't exist when managing separate systems for online and in-store operations.
Once you get up and running with Shopify, it's a superior system and superior product. For us, it was worth every penny.