[Closed] Do we think CRC are getting a bit desperate?

yeah I was just thinking the same. oh and I see another advertising banner from them, above this reply, just saying... yep you guessed it 10% off.

Cyber Monday is something many people know about. A more global version of Black Friday.

CRC is in international company, even if some of it's customers are not 😉

"youo b'aint be from round'ere be you?"

WTF is Cyber monday?>!??

Dunno. Sounds rude, though.

Do I need a USB attachment?

wanna cyber, hun?

You're complaing of getting discount?

I'm waiting for the 20% off gift vouchers.

I got a few hundred quids worth last year, used them wisely, great saving.

CRC 'sales' are becoming similar to On-One/Planet-X 'sales'.

All the recent 10% discounts are only when you spend over £100, which is a pretty poor offer really.

Big animals need fed .
They don't want you to forget about them ,and go wandering off to any Wooly Hatted Merlin in Winstanley over the festive shopping time. 🙂

I remember talking to a chap last year who has a pretty good understanding of the industry. He reckons "one of the big boy" will go belly up soon. That in turn made me wonder if it was a cash flow issue.

I'd say they are just fine.

Working in online sales myself, there are standard trade patterns tied in around people's paydays - the week before payday is always a slow one, even more so this point in the year, so incentives to drive site traffic and in turn sales are pretty normal.

I thought the use of "SALES" was governed by legislation. But given that so many firms have pretty much constant sales these days, I guess this is another thing being abused. Still rather have lower prices than higher ones, so as long as no-one is suckered into believing it is a genuine sale, then no harm done I suppose.

Desperate, when they own one one of the world's largest online bike shops, several brands and a few distribution companies? I don't think so.

Owning the brands, distribution and retail gives them better margins and more control.

I just hope it lasts until Friday... when I get paid.

I thought the use of "SALES" was governed by legislation.

Provided the product has been sold at the original price for 28 days and there is evidence of it being sold at the higher price, that's all fully legit. End of the day, a business exists for the primary purpose of making a profit, so price adjustments to meet market trends need to happen.

Anyway, as has been said, lower prices so all good!

[quote=andyrm ]I thought the use of "SALES" was governed by legislation.
Provided the product has been sold at the original price for 28 days and there is evidence of it being sold at the higher price, that's all fully legit. End of the day, a business exists for the primary purpose of making a profit, so price adjustments to meet market trends need to happen.
Anyway, as has been said, lower prices so all good!
It's not unknown for CRC to offer a "SALE" price on brands that they own and for parts & bikes that have never previously been on sale - ANYWHERE. That's simply unfair competition and probably illegal to boot.

They've also stopped taking orders for kit that is currently out of stock. I'd say that was a sign that they're trying to resolve a cashflow issue.

I'm thinking of asking for CRC vouchers for christmas from the missus, inlaws, etc and then holding out for the inevitable round of discount codes and special offers in Jan/feb...

I remember talking to a chap last year who has a pretty good understanding of the industry. He reckons "one of the big boy" will go belly up soon. That in turn made me wonder if it was a cash flow issue.

Can we start a sweepstake?
I'm going to go for Wiggle

They've also stopped taking orders for kit that is currently out of stock. I'd say that was a sign that they're trying to resolve a cashflow issue.

I wouldn't.

They are more likely sick of having to refund orders they can't fulfill.

It means nothing. It's just a way of reminding us all they are there in the lead up to Christmas; we will tell our families about the 10% off and they get us bike kit from CRC rather than socks and chocolate from the local shops... marketing 101.

Wiggle +1 though i have found them to be very efficient but a tad pricey even against CRC. Merlin also good service though limited choice and stock level.

I'd like to see a pricetracker for crc similar to camelcamecamel or propertybee, just to be able to see how their prices move in relation to their release of promotional codes and sales.

CRC have been shit for months now. Pi$$ poor service..items out of stock, no response to emails, any orders often taking a week or more for delivery and frankly not even that cheap anymore. In the past 12 months or so ive spent roughly £2k on clothing and parts, almost all of it from Wiggle, who i find give the best service and of course stock the superb DHB kit, and Merlin, who are often the cheapest and have super fast delivery. Ive ordered 2 bits of kit from CRC in this time, and had the above issues on both occasions. I was going to use them for a Garmin Edge 800 last week, but as the price went from £300 upto £400 overnight, in return for a 10% off voucher, i went elsewhere. CRC, it maybe that your time is up.

I used to know a girl from Ballyclare - Happy days 😀

Wiggle aren't desperate: On their home screen there's a code for £15 off £100+ spend. So I thought now was the time to get my Garmin edge 200,bringing it down to the same price as Amazon, but OH NO!!! It's not on the rather small list of types of items included in this offer, as on the T&C's!

Grrrrr... 👿

It's not unknown for CRC to offer a "SALE" price on brands that they own and for parts & bikes that have never previously been on sale - ANYWHERE. That's simply unfair competition and probably illegal to boot.

I would expect they will have the products in question on sale at their showroom. 28 days, instore, full RRP. That's fully legal and perfectly fine. While some may call it "unfair" because CRC's group of companies also include manufacturers and distributors, I'd say it is just good business practice on their part to increase market share in several parts of the chain and so maximise business performance.

[quote=andyrm ]It's not unknown for CRC to offer a "SALE" price on brands that they own and for parts & bikes that have never previously been on sale - ANYWHERE. That's simply unfair competition and probably illegal to boot.
I would expect they will have the products in question on sale at their showroom. 28 days, instore, full RRP.
I'm talking about stuff that's often not even reached the country yet.

You're complaing of getting discount?

No, I'd guess the OP is complaining about repeatedly being bombarded with adverts for what turns out to be the same, not particularly generous, offer. Did you read his post?

Their offers last year were better*, and the fact voucher codes and offers from CRC are getting thinner on the ground and of less value suggests they are doing just fine, as Messiah says just competing with Wiggle for brand awareness on the build up to Xmas.

*£50 off your next order over £100?! Munqe chick bought a lovely Kona road frame with carbon forks for just over £100, got the voucher, and then got fulcrum racing 7 wheels after the voucher for £90. Not holding my breath for similar offers this year, any recessionary effects been offset by the explosion in cycling from this summer I reckon.

I guess they have sales targets/income targets they need to meet each month and there has been chat on the news about it being a very slow pre xmas build up, so perhaps they are getting twitchy.

I used to know a girl from Ballyclare - Happy days

Me too, hope it wasn't the same one!

I don't touch CRC these days, unless they're the only ones with stock and I need something in a hurry. I've had enough of the BS headline prices when it turns out they only have that size suitable for a one-legged unicorn and that every other size is pretty much normal price. I do remember the good old days of the flood sales, shame they moved else I'm sure there would be some more actual bargains to be had for a change...

I would reckon if the offers are not as good, then business must be better than it was, as they are not bothered about grabbing new business.

I send out offers on a weekly basis, and the quality if the offer depends on how busy my diary is.

Empty diary, cracking discount offer in a bid to fill it up.

Almost fully booked, not that great an offer as I'm not too bothered.

But I send them out every week regardless as people get used to seeing them and that's how direct marketing is done best (so I'm told)

My biggest gripe with CRC is Royal Mail (and those stupid non post box sized boxes), specificaly their Wokingham office.

They've closed the parcel collection bit down to 10-12:30, so in effect it's closed on Weekdays before work and only half the usual hours at weekends in the run upto Christmas!

If I wanted to que for an hour to get stuff I'd not buy of the internet! Just a shame the LBS is massively overpriced, £36 for a pair (i.e. a bikes worth) of brake pads? Jog on! They do have a shop full of carbon bling frames though so I guess they know the local Berkshire/Surrey market.

I think Wiggle's website is much easier to navigate than CRC's, so I order most stuff from Wiggle. CRC has too much choice, and I lose interest before finding what I want.

They've closed the parcel collection bit down to 10-12:30

our local depot has extended its opening hours beyond office hours and saturday mornings. Can you get stuff delivered to work?

I would reckon if the offers are not as good, then business must be better than it was, as they are not bothered about grabbing new business.

I send out offers on a weekly basis, and the quality if the offer depends on how busy my diary is.

Empty diary, cracking discount offer in a bid to fill it up.

Almost fully booked, not that great an offer as I'm not too bothered.

But I send them out every week regardless as people get used to seeing them and that's how direct marketing is done best (so I'm told)

^^This.

And yeah, you're totally right about regular contact. It's called "conditioning". Back in the day, you used to have to make an average of 8 contacts to close a sale (for "sale" that could mean order, booking or whatever, but fundamentally is a sale). Nowadays due to information overload, it's something like 60, so yeah, you need to keep the contact up, hence CRC sending regular things out, even if they aren't amazing. It keeps you warm to them and keeps you opening their email.

Additionally, they will be classifying and datamining all email campaigns - I'd expect they have some very clever sub categories etc. From the email campaign they can track who opens the email, where they click through to, how long they stay on site, what else they look at etc. All of which is massively valuable data to an online business to plan sales activity and make more profit.

our local depot has extended its opening hours beyond office hours and saturday mornings. Can you get stuff delivered to work?

Unfortunately not, but have started getting urgent stuff delivered to the missus' parents house.

It's stupid though, the que is often down the street and takes at least 45 min. The stupid thing is they now have to have someone marshaling the que as it runs allong the access road to their yard and out onto the high street. So that's another person that isn't at the front finding parcels.

And they book every parcel in/out in a logbook, why the electronic signature system can't log it I've no idea, but that must be another minute or so for them per person in the que looking for their name in the logbook!

Do people not know how to unsubscribe from CRC emails?

Not holding my breath for similar offers this year, any recessionary effects been offset by the explosion in cycling from this summer I reckon.

Plus last year CRC were still suffering the after affects of the Credit card details hack so were pretty keen to get trade back up

True, but the TDF was sponsored by Wiggle, and they must be losing custom to the german websites?

headfirst - Member

On their home screen there's a code for £15 off £100+ spend. So I thought now was the time to get my Garmin edge 200,bringing it down to the same price as Amazon, but OH NO!!! It's not on the rather small list of types of items included in this offer, as on the T&C's!

Grrrrr...

[b]> Clothing * Bags * Helmets * Shoes * Nutrition <[/b]

Some interesting speculative thoughts above, so I pulled the accounts.

Sales up From 2010 £100 million to £136 million 2011, so not really suffering from credit card details.

In terms of profit and cashflow, looks good 10 months ago, loans of £2.5million not insurmountable debt. 32% gross margin..and grew through the recession by the looks of it, so CRC on face looks pretty solid on paper.

Really interesting reading, didn't realise they owned a place in Taiwan and are linked with Hotlines.

They're not desperate, it's just a way of clearing lots of old stock. And I expect there are lots of people who buy something they might not normally get just because of the 10%

@ Rusty: details, details...

Anyway, I went back and got a good deal on some ortlieb panniers (105-15=90 quid for 2 pannier bags and a large saddle bag), so I'm happy now. 😀

I work with a girl from Ballyclare.

Not all it's cracked up to be.