“Can a direct-to-consumer online bike retailer use embedded finance (BNPL, FX, fraud tools) to compete nationally and internationally against brick-and-mortar retailers on price and convenience?”
Founded in 2011 as a garage-based eBay shop undercutting traditional bike retailers with direct-from-factory pricing, Bikes Online grew into a major Australasian DTC e-commerce brand before expanding into the US market. The company layered embedded finance progressively: Stripe for payments and fraud, OFX for supplier FX management, and consumer BNPL (Affirm) to increase cart conversion on high-ticket items. The business remains a pure DTC retailer with no financial product ambitions of its own — embedded finance is entirely in-service of checkout conversion and supplier payments.
Bikes Online processes payments through Stripe.
Bikes Online uses OFX for FX and cross-border payouts.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in Bikes Online's stack: Payments / PSP (Stripe); Lending (Ride Now Pay Later (BNPL installment loans), 0% interest financing and Up to 36-month installment plans); FX & payouts (OFX).
Bikes Online was founded by Jonathon Allara and James van Rooyen and is founded in 2011, headquartered in Sydney, Australia (also operates in the US as Bikes Online, Inc.).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Bikes Online and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.