Possible demise of CRC / Wiggle

benpinnick

Sounds like the german version is similar, just a bit more hands off.

The german version of anything will involve a lot more paperwork, and actual paper forms needing signing and stamping.

They’re a funny old mix of very modern and very old school bureaucratic, it’s kind of charming until you are actually dealing with the hassle of it

Bit late to this but there are some Euro names I know connected to Signa who are Berlin based.
Probikeshop
fahrrad.de
Bikester
Brugelmann
CRC/Wiggle

I’m hesitant ordering from any of these now and will probably stick with R2 and Bike Discount.

Good riddance if they go as far as I’m concerned.

I had a set of XT M8120 brakes in my basket at £124.99 and £139.99. I removed an item and the page refreshed with the brakes at £169.99 and £154.99. A short chat session and I was told prices do change. Given the poop they are  in you would have thought the instructions would be honour all baskets when customers noticed the increase. 

I’m not expecting them to hold the basket at that price for days, we’re talking 24 hours here. 

Marko

Good riddance if they go as far as I’m concerned.

I had a set of XT M8120 brakes in my basket at £124.99 and £139.99. I removed an item and the page refreshed with the brakes at £169.99 and £154.99. A short chat session and I was told prices do change. Given the poop they are in you would have thought the instructions would be honour all baskets when customers noticed the increase.

I’m not expecting them to hold the basket at that price for days, we’re talking 24 hours here.

Yes, they should all lose their jobs. I’m sorry you had to go through this. Overnight pricing changes are something nobody should have to cope with.

The are a few European countries with their own Hotlines entities all with their own structures and dependences waiting to collapse. Hotlines France sells through bricks and mortar shops and supports a domestic enduro team, so that’s another crowd that’ll be desperately searching for support.

That seems pretty standard in a lot of places…prices do seem to change daily in a lot of markets.

Given the poop they are in you would have thought the instructions would be honour all baskets when customers noticed the increase. they may be under some legal obligation to try and make enough money to keep the business afloat and not sell at a loss

Ftfy

probably stick with R2

I ordered from them a while back and had no end of issues with chasing a delivery via UPS that eventually has ended in a dispute as they’d damaged the package so much 2 of 3 items were missing, and it came (finally) in a UPS box that wasn’t sealed. I got my money back for the missing items – R2 were pretty easy to deal with about that, but it took over a month from start to (sort of) finish , and was constant hassle of waiting, paying import fees, calling UPS to remind them that I’d paid them, chasing R2 to chase UPS,  trying to find the package, them ignoring me for ages, and so on and on.
Doubt I’ll be doing that again in a hurry, and I still need to re-order the bits that were missing from somewhere

How are shops meant to introduce a price change exactly? Should they start increasing a price 1 pence every 30 minutes until they reach their target in a weeks time?

Your timing was just unfortunate but it’s not exactly the end of the world.

Companies House is still showing Wiggle as an active company. I know that this is all only a day old, but I’d have thought that this would have needed to be up to date.

You’ve not dealt with Companies House much, I assume? No, the records often don’t update that quickly.

Wtf is “self administration” anyone? Never come across this (and I’ve been involved with some companies going into administration before, it invariably involved appointing (outside) administrators).

Wtf is “self administration” anyone? Never come across this (and I’ve been involved with some companies going into administration before, it invariably involved appointing (outside) administrators).

I believe it’s the german version of administration with intent to continue trading through it.

Thanks Ben.

They’ve just put up their Black Friday offers – Wiggle Black Friday Deals 2023 | Wiggle

I was not saying it was wrong to change name, just pointing out that it had happened and thus it was less easy for people who don’t know to find the publicly available information to inform themselves.

No, what you said was:

they changed the company name to make it harder to find…

This is utter bullshit. Other posters above have explained why company names are often changed in insolvency situations, and it’s not to make them harder to find. And neither is it true that changing the name makes the company harder to find: you whack the company’s old name in Companies House website and it takes you to the company’s record under its new name.

This is not the first time you’ve made wobbly comments about your competitors on here.

benpinnick

Sounds like the german version is similar, just a bit more hands off.

If they have to engage an external administrator, would that make it more Hans on?

Thoughts and prayers for Marko.

They’ve just put up their Black Friday offers – Wiggle Black Friday Deals 2023 | Wiggle

Some of the in-house bikes and frames are looking remarkably good value… If your brave enough to skirt some potnetial warranty issue, a full carbon trail bike frameset with a Fox factory shock for £1400 plus any other discount you might get from BC etc.

How long has this been up? About 2 weeks? then it all goes titsup for CRC

Black Friday looks like the same stuff they have had on offer for a while based on the few things I had looked at buying.

I think I’d be happy buying cheaper items still, on a cc.

Pair of NP trousers for me and a new seat ordered for mini-DBW #000002’s new bike build.

I’m currently building an N+1 hardtail for the coming winter. Comparing prices on parts with other retailers, there is very little that CRC/Wiggle are cheapest for. If cashflow is their biggest issue right now, I expected them to be undercutting everyone, to get cash in asap.

PCA I’m not making statements and accusations like you just have. I was just pointing out the name change makes it harder to find if you were just googling it or similar. That’s actually the reason they do it.

Neil SuperstarComponents

If cashflow is their biggest issue right now, I expected them to be undercutting everyone, to get cash in asap.

I feel like they were doing that a couple of months ago, when there were some crazy deals, and this BF sale is just a pre-planned marketing thing.

Once you go into/decide to go into administration then you stop selling stuff cheap. You wont be able to afford to replace it/get credit for a while, so you need to sell stuff at the best price you think you can get over whatever period it will be for.

honourablegeorgeFull Memberbenpinnick

Sounds like the german version is similar, just a bit more hands off.The german version of anything will involve a lot more paperwork, and actual paper forms needing signing and stamping.

They’re a funny old mix of very modern and very old school bureaucratic, it’s kind of charming until you are actually dealing with the hassle of it

I’ll say. My wife is trying to renew her German passport at the consulate in Cardiff. They will only accept payment via a Postal Order. She had to buy one in the PO yesterday and they had no idea how to do it, had to look it up. She then had to withdraw cash from her card at the PO counter to pay for the postal Order they were selling to her! Madness

Your timing was just unfortunate but it’s not exactly the end of the world.

I was under the impression that it was all about cash flow in a crisis, not profit. They clearly have the item in stock and were selling at a profit at the old price I assume? Hard to believe that they would not give me a discount code to bring my basket back to the old price given the circumstances.

Purchased from Biketart for an extra fiver.

@welshfarmer – LOL, that’s exactly the sort of thing

Years back, remember queuing at some tax office to get a form, then having to join another queue when I had filled out the form, got to the top, the clerk stamped the form, and told me to go to a different office halfway across the city to hand in the form. Whole day gone.

Once you go into/decide to go into administration then you stop selling stuff cheap. You wont be able to afford to replace it/get credit for a while, so you need to sell stuff at the best price you think you can get over whatever period it will be for.

But they’re not selling anything unique. We are talking about items that can be bought from other retailers at a lower price. Why would anyone want to order from CRC for more money, when there is a risk you may not even receive your purchase?
Seems like a sure-fire way to ensure collapse.

How long has this been up? About 2 weeks? then it all goes titsup for CRC

Makes you think!

Looks on the website there are some bargins to be had. But do you think consumer faith is there in the long run with worries over returns and warranty problems ..

Looking for a GX 12 speed chain , Wiggle have slashed their price from £30 to £ 29.99 ! 👍£23.99 from Certini that includes postage . 🤔

That’s actually the reason they do it.

I really don’t think it is.

Once you go into/decide to go into administration then you stop selling stuff cheap. You wont be able to afford to replace it/get credit for a while, so you need to sell stuff at the best price you think you can get over whatever period it will be for.

Once a company enters administration it’s the Administrators who decide what to do and their primary objective is to maximise returns for the creditors.

Normally they try and keep the business running whilst they look for an alternate buyer, if that doesn’t seem viable they sell off everything for the most they can, to raise as much money for the creditors.

I was under the impression that it was all about cash flow in a crisis, not profit. They clearly have the item in stock and were selling at a profit at the old price I assume?

Well they weren’t, they were losing £200k/day!

The parent company pulled the financial rug from under them that was supporting that, and here we are, prices go up to reflect what it actually costs to sell them.

I expect they were still had a markup on most of the stuff they were/are selling, but that may not have been enough to cover their staffing, tech, marketing costs on a lot of items they’ve been knocking out cheap.

Once a company enters administration it’s the Administrators who decide what to do and their primary objective is to maximise returns for the creditors.

The German system being used is slightly different it seems… the owners still have some control, at least at first.

I expect they were still had a markup on most of the stuff they were/are selling, but that may not have been enough to cover their staffing, tech, marketing costs on a lot of items they’ve been knocking out cheap.

Still selling it at less than “cost”, just with your definition “cost” is articially low.

If I make a million widgets on a million pound machine, with £5 raw material cost, and sell them for £5.50, I’m still selling them at less than cost.

Just that CRC’s raw materials are a finished product and it’s machine is a website and warehouse / distribution center.

Well they weren’t, they were losing £200k/day!

But not on the item I was about to purchase. It’s not like the original price was massively undercutting the competition, so instead of making some profit they’ve just handed the margin over to Biketart.

How do you know they were making some profit?

Still selling it at less than “cost”, just with your definition “cost” is articially low.

This, but also just plain old below cost. I bought some OE parts last week for £39.99 a pop, £33.25 ex Vat. Those have a price of $68.95 FOB from the factory. So once you paid to import them, 4% duty etc maybe $75 a go. £33.25 is 50% off OE price. Yes CRC probably paid less than I do for them, but not that much less.