Last weekend, £10 off £75, today £13 off £100, weekend before last, £12 off £80, etc etc etc. Basicaly 15% off a random number between £75 and £100 Tursday-Tuesday, every weekend.

I’m building a new bike at the moment and putting in orders of £75-£100 each weekend to spread the cost a little as the frame’s still a week or two away so taking full adavantage, the only problem is to get the best out of the offer means buying lots of £1.99 bits to tip it just over the threshold and I don’t need any more puncture repair kits!

Are they doing it to increace the size or orders to make postage more efficient, or to make UK orders cheep as the offers don’t apply to international orders thus keeping the headline ‘free post’ on international orders. But surely they’d be better off loweing prices by 10-15% and bumping themselves up the google shopping results?

I’d guess that the manufacturers and distributors are trying to stop CRC underwriting everyone else’s prices (thereby letting some smaller retailers compete) and this is CRCs way of getting around that.

I hadn’t thought of that, but makes sense, bit like On-One selling thinny pedals for £80, with a 50% off coupon e-amiled to everyone.

PITA though going through my wish list picking out a selection that adds upto exaclty £XX and 1p of in-stock items.

Have given my money to the lbs just recently. Apart from unmatchable deals on OEM kit, the lbs are quite happy to match or undercut CRC’s prices on a wide range of kit from wheels to helmets

The inexpensive items on CRC create a smokescreen so that everything appears to be a bargain, but it isn’t.

Use CRC to see what’s available then go buy it from the lbs!

Or is it that crc are struggling with cash flow right now? No idea if that’s the case, just a theory.

“Use CRC to see what’s available then go buy it from the lbs!”

I usually find that CRC doesnt have much available or its old stock. Not used them for a long time, and they are not cheap either.

My guess is that its a combination of avoiding upsetting suppliers by publishing discounts, and increasing basket spend. All those little bits and bobs that take you over the threshold are high margin – particularly when they don’t carry an additional postage cost.

Are they doing it to increace the size or orders to make postage more efficient, or to make UK orders cheep as the offers don’t apply to international orders thus keeping the headline ‘free post’ on international orders.

I’m getting similar offers, in Euros, in Sweden. That’s with free postage too. I’d never thought that they might be working loopholes with distributors. I figured they were starting to feel the heat from mainland-European (mainly German) retailers. Nowadays I only ever buy from CRC if it’s something on super-special-offer, otherwise, even with ordinary discounts, the Germans are almost always cheaper (even including postage costs), and much, much, much faster with international shipping.