I received an email from Wiggle at the weekend telling me about a limited time 35% discount on cycling and running shoes. Sounded good, so I took a look.

While it was clear that it wouldn’t be 35% off everything, I was surprised to find that of all the cycling shoes on their site, only one pair of one style of (ladies’) shoe in one size on the whole site had 35% off.

When I raised it with Wiggle they said that it was only 20% off cycling shoes, and they’d request that it was made clearer in future promotions. To my mind it is less a question of making it clearer; more a question of not deliberately misleading customers to get them to the site. There was no mention anywhere in the email of a 20% offer.

Rant over. Is this against the law, or just taking the pi** out of customers?

I know that CRC tend not to have every size, colour, shape etc available at the headline price, but to me this is very different.

CRC rock! saved £100 on shoes! but I’m going to complain as it said 20% off and not 75% off tsk tsk.

Wiggle are good too but yeah when it comes to sales I don’t expect the advert to apply to my shoes. At least they should state up to 35%.

Would I email Wiggle to complain? no but I’d shop elsewhere!

No that’s not how it should be done, I would say misleading. However it’s very difficult to police online sales for Trading Standards. Should at least say “up to 35% off” to be correct. When I worked in retail it was always the rule you’d try to have a certain percentage of stuff at that beat offer price. This was because people would specifically look for that particular saving and you didnt want loads of hassle dealing with folk moaning about what was on offer.

Glad I wasn’t the only one who thought this was a bit on the devious side. On thw whole Wiggle are pretty good so I expect this was an oversight rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Have you written a snotty letter to Watchdog and The Daily Wail yet?

No. Not planning to take it any further at all. And I generally like Wiggle. Maybe I’ve over reacted, but it just really irritated me, as it I felt like it was playing customers for idiots.

clicked on the ad’ as said 35% off not “up to” or any specific brand so thought it was some sort of special promotion

– yes there were running shoes at 35% off but more at 10% off which isn’t really a big deal, means that I’ll probably ignore future emails

<lights burning stave>
baying mob of villagers up to Castle Wigglestein ?
count me in !

*hammers rusty nail through baseball bat*

it works against them. As I never check their site out anymore for that very reason. Might hook the occasional person in but just serves to piss peeps off.

I’ll bring the milk bottles and petrol

On the way to wiggle, can we go to CRC? It annoys me when I type something like http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=thomson+seatpost into google shopping, they come up first with £51.00. Click through, and practically everything other than a 28.6mm 330mm post is £71.99.

Burning’s too good for ’em…

A couple of years ago they ran a 20% of all waterproofs promotion. Immediately before they moved some items from the waterproofs section to the windproof section. I did e-mail them as I thought it was a pretty rotten trick, they claimed it was pure coincidence and that the decision of the product manager who decided to move the items was completely independent of the marketing department who ran the promotion.

I think they were lying myself but I saw no point in pursuing it.

*sharpens pitch fork* 👿

*hammers rusty nail through baseball bat*

Have you ever tried to do this? Most nails long enough to protrude sufficiantly from the bat (I’m assuming you want the pointy end sticking out?) will be a bit thick, and driving several through could split the wood. Better to drill holes just a tiny bit smaller than the diameter of the nails, then it’s easier to knock them through. Bit of Araldite keeps everything secure.

In fairness to Wiggle I received an email this afternoon to say that it was a mistake and that it has been raised with their marketing department.

No ‘in fairness to Wiggle’ sentiment here.
I’ve had a run-in with them before and now refuse the shop there. V. bad company IMO.

It is misleading but CRC hook p’s me off more. The gloves, shoes etc. they advertise at reduced prices always seem to be at the extremes of the size range. It’s put me off shopping there.

CRC rock! saved £100 on shoes! but I’m going to complain as it said 20% off and not 75% off tsk tsk.

Wiggle are good too but yeah when it comes to sales I don’t expect the advert to apply to my shoes. At least they should state up to 35%.

Would I email Wiggle to complain? no but I’d shop elsewhere!

is it just me that doesn’t understand this reply?

All that is missing is the wording up to 35% and yes it is against the trade descriptions act!

It is a bit norhty!

I once asked CRC and Wiggle to price match Merlin on a pair of Revelation forks.
CRC did, but i was told by wiggle that the products were different. Both Revelation races, both dual air (i tried to explain to the girl at wiggle that there wasn’t a coil version of the rev race fork) but Merlin had used “Revelation Race” as the product title, Wiggle used “Revelation Race Dual Air” as there’s and as such, they refused to price match, as she didn’t know any information about the fork. I haven’t used them since! (I was one of their ‘Platinum Customers’)

I’ve had some good buys from Wiggle in the past but what f@&ks me off about them is when I search for a product on Google and Wiggle’s name pops up with the cheapest price. So I click the link and hey presto, “Discontinued, product no longer available.” Aaarrrggghhh!!!!!