An odd thing happened this week, I thought I’d placed and order with CRC, when what appears to have happened is the checkout has stalled (when using Paypal) and they’ve not taken the order (This was Tuesday),
Entirely my fault for not being on top of these things, and of course the major issue with relying on t’interwebs, hence I shall have to go to one of those Olde worlde bricks and mortar Bicycle shops, one of my few local options is of course Halfords (not exactly a traditional LBS I know). Now I observe from their website they operate a “Price match” policy with the following conditions:

HALFORDS PRICE MATCH
Here at Halfords we always want to make sure we’re offering you a first class service and products at competitive prices.

To ensure we keep our Price Promise to not be beaten on cost, we monitor the prices offered by our competitors daily and adjust our own pricing accordingly.

SO, WHAT’S HALFORDS PRICE GUARANTEE?
If you find a cheaper price we’ll match it, and if you find it after you’ve purchased from us we’ll refund the difference within 7 days of receipt of your goods.

Simply take a print out of the competitor’s online price into any Halfords store, ensuring, date and price are shown and we will match the competitor price if within policy.

TERMS & CONDITIONS
The competitor’s item must be identical (colour, size etc)
The competitor’s item must be in stock at the time of match
The competitor’s price must include delivery
The competitors price must be publically advertised online and cannot include any membership/personal discounts
We cannot match bulk promotional offers such as buy one get one free
The competitor must be based in the UK and sell direct to customers (no auction or marketplace retailers)
No other promotional offers or vouchers can be used on top of a price match
We will match within 7 days of receipt of purchase
If purchased from store the match must be from a store within 20 miles radius
We will match in store if our online price is lower than our store price
We will not match against clearance, closing down sales or specialist retailers such as market stalls.

Now my reading of it is they will only match an instore purchase with another shop within 20miles of that store, Price match for online purchases are not subject to this limited radius, but where does a Reserve and collect order sit in all of this?

Basically The Cassette I want is half the Price from CRC, and I can muddle through with the one I have this weekend, I need a new chain and I certainly don’t mind paying an extra fiver to have that today, So I’ll be going in to get that whatever, but will they Price-Match CRC for a Reserve and collect order rather than an in store or online purchase?

Can I play one “Evil Mega-corp” off against another to have my cake and eat it, or should I just pony up?

I asked and “It’s at the managers discretion” and that applied to all price matching. A few quid off a £50 part was fine, a pair of forks at 50% off RRP (matching CRC) wasn’t going to happen.

Do you not have an Evans close by?
They match CRC, Merlin etc….They tend to have stock unlike Halfords

Ive got a niggle that reserve and collect makes you pay in store when you collect it, so that probably counts as an in-store purchase as the transaction took place in the shop.

It’s clever actually, as what they’re saying is if you want a high street store we’ll match local high street prices and that’s the level of service. If you want us to chuck something in a box, with it’s lower associated overheads, yeah we can match that too with a like for like service.

Chapeau!

I reserved a brake mount for in store collection which was 9.99

Went in to collect and showed them on my phone that they were in stock for £7 at Merlin and try price matched without any questions

Ive got a niggle that reserve and collect makes you pay in store when you collect it, so that probably counts as an in-store purchase as the transaction took place in the shop.

That was precisely my thought.

I reserved a brake mount for in store collection which was 9.99

Went in to collect and showed them on my phone that they were in stock for £7 at Merlin and try price matched without any questions

This is pretty much what I’m looking to do, it’s only an HG50 Cassette, £20 from Halfrauds a Tenner form CRC, just wondered if I’d be shot down by them for being cheeky, No Discount, no sale for the Cassette, But I still need a chain so they’ll take some money off me one way or another…

Oh hang on, I can only reserve the Chain for pick up today, but the cassette isn’t available until 1pm tomorrow, looks like they have to get it brought over from another store… kind of defeats the whole point of the exercise…

Looks like CRC get some of my money… Carry on.