Possible demise of CRC / Wiggle

Thoughts and prayers Stevie (and wasp)

My parcel of bargains arrived avec haribo.
The £5 dhb jerseys are very much a racing fit that my current physique can’t carry off!

Could I suggest sir starts sorting out the latter by giving away the former!

My wiggle orders from the beginning of last week are still languishing in the local depot for the 6th night without an attempt to deliver. Not worried – it’s the same every shitting time with Evri the useless cocks.

The Horizon bars I ordered yesterday are on their way to me. I’ll let you know when Evri turn up at the house 🙂

Nordisk tent and sleeping bags arrived today by Parcelfarce. That’s a few relatively cheap holidays and short breaks sorted for not very much money. Still on the lookout for a zip in groundsheet for anything close to the price of the tent itself. No luck so far.

No Haribo, but at these prices, I can stretch to family sharing bag of Starmix!

All good, well packaged, unopened. Very happy camper (see what I did there?!).

Seems somehow contradictory and a little bit rude to be enjoying distress sale bargains while the people at Chiggle fear for their futures, but some of the prices have been hard to resist.

Those £5 DHB Aeron jerseys are amazing! For me, perfect fit, very good quality too.

Using Evri where the difficulties lie! I hate Evri!

Ordered some DT Swiss bargain wheels and rotors on Monday – 65% off! – order still processing so taking a lot longer than usual. Not in any rush however so fingers crossed it’s nothing sinister… but more importantly hope there is haribo

ordered 2 bottom brackets on sunday, arrived yesterday.
the horizon ones, 30mm BSA (£10!) and a 24mm BSA (£15!)
considering full retai shoud be £120, these are an absolute steal. pretty colours too.

orderded via wiggle and got haribo.

also used the OUTLET10 code on them.

leatt googles £21 arrived today , with haribo

Parcel arrived yesterday, 2 days late courtesy of Evri. No Haribo.

Ad… I now know why Evri take so long. The delivery driver, lovely chap, stood talking to me for a good 10 minutes on teh doorstep.

Get in!

Had my order cancelled. Nothing fancy… just brake pads I needed for the weekend.

Looks like Halfords have joined the queue of potential buyers.

That would be very interesting. A huge physical shop network with the online presence and scale of WCRC…

Due to this thread I ordered twice from Wiggle last week, one lot of cycling clothes and one lot of running clothes! Both arrived with no haribo!

The £5 dhb jerseys are very much a racing fit that my current physique can’t carry off!

I’m usually an easy medium, but wow those DHB roadie jerseys looked like a crop top!

12 items arrived, 9 went back…

one of the items that arrived and stayed was a nice DHB Aeron Run Jacket, it was to be used for pre, during and post exercise as a new stinky top replacing the hoody I’ve used for too long, turns out its a nice jacket and wouldn’t mind another, not a sign of it on the Wiggle site 2 days later, not even a page that says out of stock, how can something be in stock and I ordered two diff sizes and then be gone the next!

Looks like Halfords have joined the queue of potential buyers.

This would be a more promising solution than Frasers Group (Mike Ashley).

Hope the business can be kept running without shafting suppliers or laying off more staff anyway.

I can’t imagine that Halfords or Evans will be willing or able to purchase wiggle without further consolidation and job losses. The cycling market is in a generally poor state as we all know too well.
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/halfords-sees-cycling-revenue-fall-in-first-half-of-2023

Hope the business can be kept running without shafting suppliers or laying off more staff anyway.

Reading things I think we are past that point. There will be more losses, suppliers have lost out, it is now a case of can you save the few resources including brand and website, less about physical resources such as stock. I cannot imagine anyone is supplying them currently…

I can’t imagine that Halfords or Evans will be willing or able to purchase wiggle without further consolidation and job losses. The cycling market is in a generally poor state as we all know too well.

True, but as a buy/merger it makes the most sense. Halfords has never really had much of a mail order business, and unless it plans to make the same mistake again as they did with Kona, Saracen, Voodoo etc they don’t have a higher end bike brand in store either.

CRC buying power + Halfords bricks and mortar could be good for consumers.

Whoever buys them there will be job losses, it’s inevitable that a new company will only need one set of back office services, management and admin.

And I’m sure integrating Halford’s IT system into the CRC/Wiggle/Hotlines one will go really really well 😉

They’re clearing the stock at a rapid pace for less than cost; when Frasers bought evans they paid a few million, and got the same if not more in good current stock, I’m guessing that the administrators see selling to _us_ at 50+ % discount better than Mike Ashley/Halfords at 90% discount, so they’re offloading what they can, then sell the brand assets at the end, which would open up a whole extra load of buyers too, as NP/Vitus could be broken up from Wiggle, from CRC, etc. and each unit comes with a smaller bill to the buyer and easier to integrate, meaning more bidders, better prices.

These kind of fire sales generate their own issues for the industry, as spend gets diverted from other stores that are currently selling at RRP or 30% discount to CRC/Wiggle who are getting things out of the door at 60-80% discount 

We’ve had one order for a wetsuit cancelled, but a couple of days later they appeared to have stock again, so MrsF ordered again. Just ordered some Ergon GP3’s for my commute bike – best price by far.

Those people saying a Halfords merger would be good know that Tredz is Halfords don’t you?

These kind of fire sales generate their own issues for the industry, as spend gets diverted from other stores that are currently selling at RRP or 30% discount to CRC/Wiggle who are getting things out of the door at 60-80% discount

Quite. I wonder if Isla’s selling off x million £s worth of kids bikes will take a couple of brands with them.

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Those people saying a Halfords merger would be good

I think people are saying it makes business sense and it’d be better than Mike Ashley.

More “least worst” than “good”.

Aren’t bikes sent to retailers on supply or return? So if Chwiggle were to fail with a warehouse full of Megas would they not return to Nukeproof, which would then cause them a problem and make them look worse for potential buyers of the brand?

Aren’t bikes sent to retailers on supply or return?

Depends but often, no.

Those people saying a Halfords merger would be good know that Tredz is Halfords don’t you?

Yes and I’m fine with that, I’ve always found tredz to be decent. Much better that Mike Ashley getting hold of it.

Much better that Mike Ashley getting hold of it.

I wonder what the Venn diagram of people saying this and the people buying cheap 5.10s & turbo trainers from Evans is.

WGAF really

I’ve always been pondered the divide in this place over Evans / Ashley. Seems to be a 50:50 split of folk who would never shop at Evans due to Ashley and folk who either don’t care or just hold their noses when presented with a good deal.

Anyway. I got a CRC order through. No issues, no haribo.

Hope the staff are looked after as best they can be

£2K cargo bike has been shipped.  I’m thinking I might do something stupid with it, like cycle the length of Spain 

Have agreed to wave the inspection of a bike order to get it quicker. I’m assuming it will be mostly constructed – if it’s just a box of bits and I’m having to do a full build and shorten hoses I’m going to be well annoyed. Anyone know yet what this actually means?

I’m assuming hydraulics and cables will be fine but fork, handlebars seat, wheels  etc will require fitting

Normal factory delivery is front wheel off, a shit ton of packaging, bars rotated. You’ll need to set everything up as index and brake alignment will be poor. Brakes should be bled though. Check all bolts!

@munkyboy so you agreed to something that your not sure what the outcome will be but will be annoyed if it’s not what you envisage 

As long as its yourself your annoyed with I’m OK with that 

Hoses etc will be fine it’s not a box of bits it’s just a pdi and everyone with  double figures iq could mange it .

@molgrips crc wiggle own nukeproof so no .

Sale or return …….just doesn’t happen in any modern retail environment on large scale .

Extended credit terms maybe but sor no 

Had a basket full of stuff for a week and when attempting checkout got “no delivery options available”. Tried again just now and just completed the order – assume the administrators have paid Evri’s bill.

That sounds fine to be honest. I usually do a check and shakedown on anything I buy anyway.

I would have been annoyed as you are effectively agreeing to something that isn’t fully defined. It’s risk/reward judgement on delivery speed based on dealing with a company that may disappear