..t stock levels?

Almost time for another C2W splurge but they have exactly 1 full suspension MTB within the £3k price restriction displayed on their website. I’m hoping this is due to sold outness of 2020 stock and that when the 2021 bikes arrive then it should be lots better.

But equally I’m conscious that if they treat their suppliers as shit as they treat their customers these days then perhaps lots of brands are refusing to deal with them any more.

Anyone got the skinny?

I suspect there’s not a lot of faith in them paying their bills tbh

I was corrected on here a few weeks ago when I slagged off Mike the Billionaire.

I don’t think anybody has much in the way of stock at the moment and that’s not going to get better any time soon ,

I have lost all faith in them see my post from a few weeks ago
Evans

Basically it looks like you put your deposit down. They don’t deliver you won’t get a refund just a voucher.

Was reading via friends in the UK disty trade that some of their bike brands have got sod all in the way of 2021 stock already – that is -its presold to shops so if your shop hasn’t the capital/foresite/storage to take on a heap of stock then little in the way of bikes coming their way

I’d say if you want a new bike and ain’t too fussy on what you want….get it bought now as there’s gonna be a dearth between shop stocks running out and 2022 stock arriving

Oh and I wouldn’t pre order sod all from Evans I’d use them as an absolute last resort on a collect from shop only deal

they have exactly 1 full suspension MTB within the £3k price restriction

I’d guess this is more to do with what sells than what they have stock of. It’s sports direct for bikes, it’s not about shifting 10x £20k bikes a year anymore, it’s about shifting 100x £200 bikes a week.

How is their choice of <1k commuter bikes?

As an ex-employee of Evans I really hope they go bust soon. Even before Mike Ashley got involved some of the practices that head office and the regional managers took were scandalous.

Expected stock dates are slipping everywhere that posts it. Availability on one cube bike I’m watching has gone from next week, to mid December, to May 2021 (!) in the past week yet plenty of sites still say 10 days or soon or similar.

And Evans are being just as conservative about the Arkose as about branded bike availability. The listing were posted but taken down again.

So on this occasion, Mike Ashley’s other vices duly acknowledged, I suspect Evans are being honest. There’s no stock for suppliers to be reluctant about.

How is their choice of <1k commuter bikes?

Try and stay on topic dear boy. This is a thread about buying a new bouncer at a heuge discount 👿🤔😜

I have lost all faith in them see my post from a few weeks ago

Ah yes indeed. Funnily enough that is part of what prompted me to post. I was browsing elbow and knee pads in Chillfactore Evans and was told that I couldn’t try them on in store due to Covid, but could buy both sizes and return the ones that didn’t fit. All went swimmingly until I returned to the shop 2 weeks later to be told that I can’t get a refund, just a credit note. I was seriously pissed off and spent ages discussing it with the store manager.
Complete impasse. Computer ( head office) says No.
So now I have £70 quids worth of “Sports Direct” vouchers I need to spend.

TBH, it’s the deterioration in customer service that puts me off C2W with them as much as the lack of stock. Most shops, and indeed the Evans of old would see you right, but I can easily see them having sod all bikes to buy and me sat there with a £3k voucher with an imminent expiry date that I’m forced to spend on energy gells or something.

Disclaimer: yes, I know. First world problem and all that. I realise there are people with proper issues at present, and this is not one of them. Apologies.

So on this occasion, Mike Ashley’s other vices duly acknowledged, I suspect Evans are being honest. There’s no stock for suppliers to be reluctant about.

Probably this. And worth remembering that Ashley gave staff a payrise and sorted some of the previous dodgy dealings. Despite his many dodgy dealings, Evans is a long way from being the best stick to beat him with.

I’m awaiting a high end Ti road bike. Frame delivery has been pushed back and I expect actually getting the groupset and other bits to get it built up will delay it further.

In the scale of what Covid has done to some families, I can deal with a late bike delivery.

Its a shame. Ive had many Vvans bikes (norcos mainly) and never and issue. Fast shipping etc. Maybe the lucky 1%. Even during lockdown I got a Norco sight c1 and torrent s1 in under 10 days.

My local Evans has actually stolen my custom off the lbs by being better at providing an lbs style service. The workshop is in particular very helpful and flexible for ad hoc help and it means I end up buying stuff (using price match) way more often.

The shop floor has been almost totally empty for months now though!

There isn’t a lot of stock out there at all. I know from a Pinnacle POV we’ve been editing the due in dates on the site to reflect current expectations but any due in date from any brand, supplier etc is speculative at best at the moment.

I suspect there’s not a lot of faith in them paying their bills tbh

Suspect away… after all this is a place where baseless speculation has become quite normal. Or maybe ask Evans suppliers for facts. Do you think SD is a company short of a few quid who aim to have bad supplier relationships? I can image not all of those relationships are eye-to-eye 100% as it will be in any business world but they’re not a company that has a problem paying it’s bills.

Refund / voucher and communications complaints though, yes I think it’s fair to be critical there – people have had negative experiences. Try coping with the 10s of 1000s of back-orders placed in March-July, supply chain chaos, customer services staff disruption and office shut down in lockdown and a backlog of it all that overlaps with IT disruption. Not an excuse, just all totally unpredictable and probably compounded by the complexities of a business consolidation processes.

New till system didn’t help matters either. Selling bikes when to have none and not sure when you’ll get them in is challenging. In all honesty i wouldn’t get a voucher at the moment, wait till new stock arrives or you’re just going to be very limited in choices.

It seems to me that some of the big companies panicked when covid first happened and cancelled orders which is why there’s limited stock. OK, this is a simplistic view, I appreciate there are shipping issues etc and components are limited from shimano and sram.

However, companies like alpkit sonder and planet x who sell direct to customer don’t seem to have had the same issues and have stock available.

The no refund, just have a Mike Ashley voucher means I would not touch evans unless they had a mahoosive sale on an expensive item.

The cynic in me thinks that the main suppliers might also want to limit stock so that it keeps the prices up. Once prices stay high for a while and we get used to paying it they will keep them high even when stock levels are back to normal.

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/opinion-analysis/2020/09/12/vosper-2021-shaping-be-most-interesting-year-decades#.X2dnP2hKiUl

Interesting read ^. Sounds like this might not sort itself out very quickly. Have also heard some factories in Taiwan are closed again now due to Covid so if it’s not been made already, due dates may slip.

However, companies like alpkit sonder and planet x who sell direct to customer don’t seem to have had the same issues and have stock available.

I waited nearly 2 months for a Frontier which I believe is their cheapest bike @ £800. They’re currently unavailable.

Some big chains like evans are not able to get credit in the way they used to. I know they had to go pro-forma with lots of distributors as a result of their business practices so I’d guess they just struggle to purchase bikes which is topped off by distributors having poor stock levels.
Evans are not alone in this situation.

^ Credit is better for cash flow of course. A company as big as SD might use having the cash available to pay on time, every time to get better credit terms than other companies. There’s also potentially the ability to pay deposits to secure stock or parts in times like this when supply chains are struggling with cash flow, availability, etc. I’m not saying this is necessarily how SD work but if you were a large wealthy company, you might, right?

Unfortunately my company only does Evans cycle to work scheme.
I got my voucher for a Sight A1 XL back in Feb/March, on the day it was supposed to be in stock the size was greyed out, I contacted Evans and they said they were not getting any XL sizes this year.
Had to cancel my voucher…a few weeks later I check the website and XL show as being in stock, WTF?
Covid struck and I didn’t reapply for another voucher.

A few weeks ago the C1 was reduced, I ordered my voucher but by the time I got it the price was back up to normal … WTF??

I just hope me company moves to a different scheme at some point..

Petition your employer to change schemes. So many reasons why it’s bad to be on the Evans only scheme. I put forward some good logical arguements and got mine to change to green commute. This means that almost any lbs will take it.

Or petition Norco to change distribution model 👍

I would imagine that since being taken over by Chav-Direct the cost for credit insurance and the payment terms are significantly worse for anyone supplying Evans, so I can’t see suppliers falling over themselves to prioritise them.

I already complained to Norco, they didn’t seem too bothered.
BTW Evans have stopped doing price match

Are Evans still Norcos uk distributer? Norco doesn’t show a distributor for UK on their website

RTW must have been a major headache this year. It’s a risk to use a voucher for anything that’s not in stock at the retailer or UK distributor, goes for Evans or any other shop. Supply is just too disrupted.

I would imagine that since being taken over by Chav-Direct the cost for credit insurance and the payment terms are significantly worse for anyone supplying Evans

Why would you imagine that though?

https://companycheck.co.uk/company/06035106/FRASERS-GROUP-PLC/credit-report#credit-score

Frasers Group is worth over a billion with £500 million cash listed. Evans bike and PAC stocks are a tiny percentage of that (just the simple facts).

Almost time for another C2W splurge but they have exactly 1 full suspension MTB within the £3k price restriction displayed on their website

My work uses the cyclesolutions website which I think is just a C2W platform by Wheelies, I’ve been looking at using the new £5k limit since April and they had very little stock back then and when I checked on Friday had even less in, I think its an demand out stripping supply kinda thing.

I’ve had an email this morning pointing out that the delivery of bikes expected week 42 is actually week 42 next year.

It’s not Wheelies, was corrected on that a while ago. Same origins but thankfully no longer associated with that circus.

It’s a risk to use a voucher for anything that’s not in stock at the retailer or UK distributor, goes for Evans or any other shop.

Id disagree, it may well be risky with some retailers, but I am happy with our supply chain. Stuff is shipping on the agreed dates, just you need to be aware (as a manufacturer) that you can’t take the previously published lead time for granted. We know when things are shipping and we publish dates accordingly. So far the disruption has been minimal.

What has happened is a couple of big guys have upset the supply chain by over ordering massively. Thats caused some lead times to just leap from 30d-90d to 7 months or more. Of course whats going to happen now is a slump in sales as there’s no stock at many outlets, companies will panic and slash their orders.

Its comedy really, but if you have your wits about you as a manufacturer and a flexible supply chain you can get round a lot of it. If you’re working on a fixed spec and launch window, its probably not so easy.

I would advise everyone to never buy a thing from Evans. All will be fine until something goes wrong, then good luck getting your hard earned cash back.

I’m owed £300 by them and until I return back to the UK, they are refusing to give it back to me. Originally it was no problem, then the shop said ‘hang on we’re getting a new system installed’ now it is impossible to refund me because there are no secure phone lines thanks to everyone working from home apparently….. Funny, the shop manager seemed to be real, the shop seemed to be real, when I returned my goods.

I’ve offered to give them my bank details, offered that a family member comes into the shop, even pay me via Paypal. They aren’t interested in anything other than keeping my money.

Thankfully I paid by credit card and so I have a case, hopefully, to claim my money back that way.

^ fair point Ben, I should have said that shipped is as good as in stock in terms of availability dates – it’s the period up to production that’s causing the uncertainty. And yes, if you can be smart with what spec you can get and make it work for you you’ve got a big advantage at the moment – make the most of it!

Id disagree, it may well be risky with some retailers, but I am happy with our supply chain. Stuff is shipping on the agreed dates, just you need to be aware (as a manufacturer) that you can’t take the previously published lead time for granted. We know when things are shipping and we publish dates accordingly. So far the disruption has been minimal.

What has happened is a couple of big guys have upset the supply chain by over ordering massively. Thats caused some lead times to just leap from 30d-90d to 7 months or more. Of course whats going to happen now is a slump in sales as there’s no stock at many outlets, companies will panic and slash their orders.

Its comedy really, but if you have your wits about you as a manufacturer and a flexible supply chain you can get round a lot of it. If you’re working on a fixed spec and launch window, its probably not so easy.

I ordered a Bird mid lockdown and everything was clear and concise. My order arrived exactly when they said it would and they were brilliant to deal with.

Cheers @benpinnick and Dan

My local shops in France are empty. Even the big sports shop chains like intersport have near zero stock. My friend runs a Scott shop and he has 5 or 6 bikes left.
New bikes are due mid October.

I ordered a Bird mid lockdown and everything was clear and concise. My order arrived exactly when they said it would and they were brilliant to deal with.

Cheers benpinnick and Dan

^ Score 1 for the small company and direct communications. Which is kind of what I meant by posting

(just the simple facts).

before – being a big company isn’t all positives.

I went into Evans in Gatwick yesterday and it was a sorry state. No customers in the shop, a sign up saying they could only sell stock that was out and talking to the 2 people in the workshop they said they’d all resigned and the shop was closing in Feb anyway.

I asked if it was anything to do with the owner and got the impression that general management was to blame. The guys there said “you’ve only got to see our ratings on trustpilot to see it’s not worth sticking around”.

He mentioned that their service centre in Kendall was going out on its own, if it hadn’t already. I had them send my forks to them as they’ve been great in the past.

Just found out you can’t redeem the R2W online, it has to be through a shop, and they’re charging you to send the bike to a shop, ok, it’s only £4, but if I was selling a £3000+ bike I woudn’t charge £4 for delivery to a shop where my customer has to go and pick it up from.

Hopefully I can convince my company to move away from Evans.