I find it one of the best, very easy to navigate around.

And then you find that most of it is not in stock….

I’ve just spent a couple of hundred pounds on odds and ends such as new BB, cassette, helmets and knee pads – and only the BB’s came from CRC as others were cheaper or had in stock what CRC did not.

Most annoyingly is CRC’s way of leaving out of stock items on google shopping – ‘ooh look at us, we have product x at 50% off.’ No you don’t. And you have not since last October.

You realise that a) you can select in stock only, and b ) there’s a bit that crawls for process on Google, right?

In defence to CRC Royal Mail have changed their services in recent years. I’ve bought a couple of things on free delivery and they’ve dispatched it the same day only for it to sit in the depot for 2-3. Royal Mail will sit on it until the last day of their SLA unless they have to deliver something else locally so it’s a bit hit and miss.

What isn’t defensible is the fact they’re now using Yodal for things now… took nearly two weeks for my Daughters balance bike to turn up, ordered well in advance which was lucky, driver said the Postcode took him to the wrong place two days in a row and we must have put it down wrong, explained politely it must be his system, the postcode on the box was correct, nope it was my fault, I didn’t really care at this point but he kept on – I told him that we have no less than 4 deliveries a day to the address (work) and handle 100 individual parcels a week and we’re kind of sure about the address but no, computer says no.

I quite like the collect+ system. Items go straight to my local shop rather than attempting delivery and then returning the package to the sorting office.

I’ve bought a couple of things on free delivery and they’ve dispatched it the same day only for it to sit in the depot for 2-3. Royal Mail will sit on it until the last day of their SLA unless they have to deliver something else locally so it’s a bit hit and miss.

I guess we’ll never really know whether it’s royal mail sitting on it or CRC…. I’ve always assumed CRC as the tracking only ever goes live I assume once it has been loaded into the back of a RM truck from crc. The tracking only goes live a few days after the despatch email.

On the flip side of CRC’s service, Hermes lost a free return, and crc refunded me within a day of me providing CRC with the Hermes tracking info.

I normally do free delivery unless it’s something I need next day. However, I ordered stuff on a Friday and it came a week later by yodal, I ordered stuff on the Monday following and it came on the Wednesday. Wiggles free delivery is quicker as is merlin.

I’m going through this with CRC at the moment. Ordered on the 4th and took until the 8th to be dispatched via Collect Plus. Today is the 12th and still no sign, in fact it was sent to the wrong depot in Dagenham when I live near Edinburgh.
Really not great service and worse than I’ve ever had from CRC.
Looks like it’ll be Wednesday at the earliest it’ll arrive which is 10 days.

I’ve not bought any bike stuff for ages. Then placed two separate orders, selecting free postage.
Both orders have arrived next day. Emails from royal mail to confirm.
Seriously impressed.

Hmm, not impressed with collect plus.

Love the idea that I don’t need to be in, but poor service for me.

CRC parcels were a week,and they kept delaying expected delivery date (to be fair to CRC they emailed to apologise).

Also paid for next day with another retailer, again they wait until it’s supposed to be delivered, then send a message it’s delayed…

Wouldn’t use them for anything I needed anytime soon.

Parcelforce have always been spot on for me, but not always an option.

That’s the postie just arrived with a CRC order I placed late on the 10th (Saturday). That was Standard (free) delivery.

Ordered Saturday morning, dispatched Saturday afternoon.
Arrived at my work in Aberdeen before 10am this morning (Tuesday)

Can’t fault them at all.

a) you can select in stock only, and b ) there’s a bit that crawls for process on Google, right?

a) that is three more clicks than needed, if their site only showed in stock items
b) you can as a google webmaster / google shopping client manipulate this to only show in stock items too.

It is deliberate click baiting IMO.

That said, I still use them, delivery is fine, but I am increasingly finding cheaper elsewhere and quicker without the faff of what is in stock or not.

I think they claim 3-5 business days on the free delivery. My last couple of orders have taken the full 5. So not terrible but you definitely need to pay for the upgraded postage or try elsewhere if you want it in a day or two.

They’re a bit cheeky with the updates – dispatched means that they’ve booked it with the courier not that it’s actually physically gone anywhere.

What do people not like about the CRC website?

CRC is the only bikeshop site I can’t use it here (at work) – it uses some kind of Flash technology (I think) with the filters, so if I filter, it freezes, then I get a page not found and have to start again. Sucks.

It doesn’t help that CRC are basically competing against the reputation they themselves had for fast free delivery 10 years ago. It feels like it was CRC that set the expectation that free delivery should be a viable option from online bike stores.

Presumably costs and competition have increased since then so they’ve been trying to wean customers off free delivery and onto their other delivery options. Not by offering a better service (as their old free service was hard to beat) but by degrading the current free service, which is not a way to keep customers happy.

The two times recently that I paid extra for delivery from CRC they or their delivery service messed it up so I ended up getting the delivery charges refunded.

I don’t mind the website (hated it when it was first revamped so I guess I’ve just got used / immune to it).

The delivery has definitely slowed down to Wiggle levels and they’ve introduced the priority dispatch charge. It’s a bit annoying but I guess I still remember the days when if you ordered by 3pm it was almost guaranteed to be with you the next day.

Its frustrating to receive the dispatch email with tracking info but for them nothing to happen for a few days.

They still seem to be the cheapest for the stuff that I’m ordering.

Paid the £2.99 delivery and arrived two days later, can’t complain personally.

I do think amazon prime has ruined me though.

I forgot to mention – Rutland cycles is unusable to anything other than my fast work laptop, and even then it can take 30seconds to load. THAT is a crap site…

Ordered some sealant from CRC at 2pm yesterday, free delivery, arrived 12.05 today in a tracked 24 box – 22 hours after ordering. What do I win?

Same here. Ordered some axle adaptors Friday night, delivered yesterday using the standard delivery.

No sign of the forks I ordered at the same time 😐

Update: the forks have been processed at the National hub and are on their way to the delivery depot

Go CRC and Parcel Force

It used to be that their express service was often slower than their regular, because they only had so many staff working on express- the big “slow” pipe never blocked up basically and the fast small pipe often did. I think they’ve intentionally slowed down the slow service.

I think if it weren’t for the fact that free used to be fast, I wouldn’t care. I still never pay for fast.

a) that is three more clicks than needed, if their site only showed in stock items

Well, I’m on the other side of the fence, it’s only 1 click (the tick box for ‘in stock only’) and I like to be able to see the out of stock items to know that they do actually sell said item (when it’s in stock) and so i can set up reminder if I want, best of both worlds. If it was all hidden by default you’d never know they do/could sell you it.

Ordered on Saturday and got a despatch email on Sunday, Collect Plus tracking still says delivery booked 2 days later. First time I’ve unused the Collect plus option, is this the norm for it?

Ordered at some point late on Thursday night, may be even early Friday….dispatch notice Friday morning and arrived at 9am today. Very happy with that as free delivery. Always been happy with CRC service as any small issues i have had have always been sorted quickly and without fuss, that’s why I keep shopping there.

I think it’s still a very good service, helmet ordered Sunday night, free delivery, turns up this morning, good times.

To point the finger further at RM, the other week I sent a frame to London, and paid for 48hrs tracked, was dropped off way before last collection, it took three days to get there, when I queried it they tried to come up with some guff about collection times etc., I kindly pointed out I paid for 48hrs from dropping off,not when they can be bothered to pick it up, so if CRC don’t have a RM driver due then it won’t get picked up till they do, and then if it misses the cut off time at the depot then it’ll take longer, my frame I posted sat in Preston for 24hrs, after it had been collected 16hrs after I’d dropped it off, where CRC are concerned as long as it turns up it doesn’t bother me how long it takes as I’ve not paid for delivery.

Ordered 11th June at 4.30, delivered today, by the free service- that seems reasonable