They have those pdf files listing sale items, so I browse through and think yeah, I'll buy that that and that at that price.
You go on the site when the sale's started and the stuff you wanted isn't in the sale.
Is it just a ruse to get you on the website?

was a really good sale last year (picked up some silver/black hope mono minis for ~£50/end with floating rotors). This year doesn't look nearly as good.

There's supposed to be a few decent bargains, but none of those bits are actually in the sale. Annoying.

or the staff have cherry picked em

I dunno if they're this cynical and premeditated, but I always got the impression that the desirable sale items were not kept in any depth, and that they were used as loss-leaders to get the punters in.
In the days when I used their retail shop, no matter how early I got there, the good stuff was always gone "Sorry, you seem to have missed the boat… s i r "

At the actual shop (Edinburgh, no idea about the others) people are queued up around the corner before they even open. A lot of the items are sold in-shop before you have a chance to see them online.

Worked out well for me, got all the sale stuff I wanted.

Surely the point of their sale is to get rid of older stock. Why would they hold this stuff 'in depth'.

What is irritating is that something I wanted was in their sale listing several years in a row, yet was never in stock when I phoned up – esoteric enough that I can't believe they'd actually got another one in to put in the following year's sale.

Must say annoying that the sale is advertised as starting at 10am today, yet you could actually buy on-line yesterday. The 3 items I had my eye on had all gone.

Onion, I'm not talking about an obscure item of discontinued stock, I'm thinking more of the things they often list in the sale that are current everyday type items – Shimano XT pedals etc. When I say 'in depth' I'd honestly be surprised if they had more than one

Stuff I wanted shows in stock, just not at the sale price listed in the pdf. Maybe they'll add it later (yeah, right)

My experience of EBC sales is ususally of bargain boxes of stuff that's cluttering their storeage and things that have been bought in bulk cheaply for the sale. And clothing in xl and bigger. In general sales are made up of the stuff that doesn't appeal to the majority of us. The buy in bulk and sell cheap stuff can often be the only thing worth going in for,

Sales are funny things, we tend (as a wee shop) not to buy too much in so we never get left with anything in real quantity like the bigger boys.

We do however pick the wrong item to buy in – usually the wrong colours etc – which we sell through gradually.

Plus… things like clothing, we only do Gore at the moment so we don't really need to get rid as it stays current longer and it saves us churning stock over just as an exercise in revenue generation. Sale prices destroy our margins so it makes commercial sense not to get into the situation where you have massive stock overhead and rubbish revenue from it at the end of season.

Our 'sae' is just spread out over the year as we sell things through and look after good customers and welcome new people in with good pricing and good service. Seems to work better that selling stuff for pennies.

Anyway, i am twaddling.

thebikechain – When are you getting De Marchi in? Seeing as a certain supplier has taken over the franchise…

Hiya – we will get some in March. Skipped this winter as it was late in the season when we got round to looking at it.

We can get stuff though if you need anything from the current (Winter) stock list.

Guys, I work for one of the Edinburgh Bicycle stores, and I'll pass on some of your frustrations. I think some of you were probably beaten to certain bargains by people buying online or queing before 10am – I beleive the sales begin at midnight online.