Online Purchases - good and bad experiences

[petal665]

Order from Ribble on the 18th, and my card was charged the correct amount. On the 23rd I have to extra charges from ribble of $6.40 and $2.20. I'll send them a 'please explain' email and then get my CC company involved.

[chill]

Pretty tricky marketing....... , on second thought down right deceptive.

Key with the wiggle discount is it is only off the list price. If you are a platinum customer you already get 12% off list price, so it may only be another 3% discount. Other items might not apply as they already are more then 15% off.

I get it now. That's why it wasn't applying because I'm a gold customer plus the item was already 19% off list price.

Oh well, Ribble have 20% off atm.

[chucknitro]

c r c order placed on 19/2 arrived today in perfect condition.

[mmhbeer]

My c r c order arrived today. Ordered on the 1st February. They sent it on the 3rd February. Must of been sitting around somewhere for a few weeks.

[BigVin]

Probably Australia Post. They suck bad..

[booge]

Still waiting for my order from PBK, dispatched the 15th Feb....still waiting!!!!! My Wiggle order was after that and got it already. I can't build my new bike til my PBK stuff arrives...not happy, it's only a stem!. I got a whole bloody bike from c r c in three days.

[Matt72]

c r c
Ordered 13/2
Received 28/2

Didn't really matter because I am not back on the bike yet but 10 working days is double their advertised average delivery time to Aus.

[gururug]

double their advertised average delivery time to Aus.

Yes, 5 days average is very optimistic.

[Gusbuster]

Wiggle - Ordered 24/2 arrived on the door step 28/2. Everything in stock, packed well as usual. Dead chuffed with how fast it got here!

[Aushiker]

Hi

PBK Order:

Order placed Thursday February 24, 2011
Order received Tuesday March 1, 2011

Five days for delivery.

Andrew

[booge]

Was that priority delivery from PBK?? I ordered mine on Feb 15 and still waiting!!!!!

[Aushiker]

Was that priority delivery from PBK?? I ordered mine on Feb 15 and still waiting!!!!!

My order? If yes then the answer is no; never bother with it.

Andrew

[gururug]

Priority dispatch, as i read it, means that if they get 200 orders overnight, yours will be packed the next day at the top ( with the other priorities ).

This in my opinion could only really speed up a delivery by half maybe 1 day. Assuming everything is in stock. All it takes is for 1 item to be out of stock and you've wasted some dough.

Not really worth it.

I could see it being a hit in McDonalds etc. though.......pay an extra 2$ to go into the fast queue. But with something that has several days postage why bother.

[booge]

I reckon if it doesn't arrive tomorrow I'll buy a stem locally and sell the PBK one whenever it gets here.

[HAKS]

Just received absolutely awesome service from Wiggle going far beyond what I expected. I ordered some road bars from them last week ($340) and they arrived yesterday. Unfortunately I realised they were the wrong size (my error) so jumped online yesterday to check where I could get the right size. PBK had a special on the bars which were down to $300 where Wiggle had them for $350. Wanting to honour the quality service I've received from wiggle in the past I emailed them asking if they could get close to the PBK price as I would really like to buy through them. They replied asking for more details which I supplied, and then they said they could do a price match under certain conditions (items in stock + no other discounts could be offered so had to forfeit the 15% deal they had going). Anyway I put the order through at full price and contacted them so they could apply the discount. Just got an email saying discount had been applied so logged in to double check the price. Not only did they price match PBK but they blew them out of the water! They took an additional ~15% off so I got the bars for $260 (total of 25% off my platinum member price).

Meanwhile their simple returns process means the wrong size bars are on the way back and I will get a full refund for them. So in the end, even after return postage to the UK for the wrong bars I will end up ahead

[HAKS]

My replacement bars are on the way back to c r c for a refund. Lack of communication between departments was the likely root of the stuff up. Regarding the refund had I chosen to accept the replacement bars, well according to them I was supposed to cop it on the chin. There reasoning was "if we had given you a higher spec model we would have covered the price difference, likewise we expect you to cover the difference when a lower spec item is sent out as the replacement". Even though it doesn't matter as I am seeking a full refund I told them politely what I think about that . Now to wait another few weeks while the bars make the trek back to the UK

The tie up loose ends, my return saga finally finished with c r c. Bars got back to them and they sent the refund. However they jipped me 10quid on postage so after another few emails I finally got all the money back. Promptly went and spent the refund at Wiggle (see above)

I'll order from c r c again (already have), but only for items I can't get anywhere else.

[Myddraal]

Had some fairly bad experience with Wiggle. Ordered a HRM, Cycle computer and a WM100 data logger to go with the HRM. The reason I purchased from wiggle was because I had $40 of discount from refer a friend. If it wasn't for having the voucher I probably wouldn't have purchased from them as I would have been better off going elsewhere, and probably purchasing different items.

Order went through Ok, and my HRM and cycle computer turned up in a few weeks as per normal, but the wm100 wasn't in stock but was displaying as available in 2-7 days. After week I sent them off an e-mail asking if they could let me know what was going on, only to receive an obviously standard copypasta response that didn't tell me anything I couldn't already find out by just looking at the website. A month later I sent them another e-mail asking what was going on, but mentioned I was still happy to wait for the data logger to arrive. They sent me back exactly the same e-mail as they'd sent - word for word - when I asked them the same thing a month ago. Two days later I get another e-mail saying my order has been canceled and that the supplier told them they could get it, but they couldn't and gave me a piddly 1 quid voucher for dicking me around for a month, and the data logger is now showing as discontinued. I'd be more willing to bet they just weren't interested in shipping a $45 item to Australia for '$5' - if you ignore the other things I bought, and never made much of an effort to even get it, since it's still very much available elsewhere.

The thing that really annoys me though is that they applied my whole 40 quid worth of vouchers to the data logger which they never sent me, and so I received no discount on the other two items I ordered, and further more, the vouchers are only valid for 90 days and they just used up a months worth of that. I can't even order a similar product from them because they don't have any. I'm of half a mind to just ask for a refund on my other purchase to the value of the vouchers. If you say you can sell something, you have to be actually able to sell it.

[gururug]

Thanks for sharing your experiences

they applied my whole 40 quid worth of vouchers to the data logger which they never sent me

I have spend a lot of money over the last two months on online bicycles gear. Funny thing is, looking back over my purchases, I really haven't got that much from wiggle. This tells me that their prices and range are not really on par with other online retailers.

I won't buy from wiggle any more. They are also discriminatory as they give some people better service/deals than others.

[Max]

Without defending Wiggle specifically, I have two observations to make about the last two posts:

1. Most, if not all, online retailers have some sort of escape clause built into their terms and conditions (Wiggle's is here) which gives them an out in case a product they advertise turns out not to be available. "If you say you can sell something, you have to be actually able to sell it" - that might be nice in an ideal world, but it's often not the case, even in bricks and mortar stores. How many times have you seen retailers like KMart, Myers, Woolies and the like publish apologies because of errors in advertisements etc? Plenty.

2. "They are also discriminatory as they give some people better service/deals than others." - this happens everywhere. Visa preferred seating. Member discounts. Frequent flier clubs. Mates rates. Bulk discounts. You name it, it's there and it's standard practice. It aint discrimination, it's business. Now if you said they gave you poor service/pricing because you're of a particular ethnicity, gender, sexual preference or for some reason enjoy wearing a maid's outfit, fine, that's discrimination!

Anyhow, mild rant over.

Max

[HAKS]

Interesting hearing the very different levels of service. I guess at the end of the day take your money to the place that best serves you. For me Wiggle have provided me with the best service over the last 2years. I've had to send items back to the 3 main UK online stores and Wiggle is the only one that have made it a hassle free service. I've talked to all via email and again Wiggle came out on top again (usually respond within 2hours if they are open) and the longest I've ever waited for a wiggle order was also about 7days, whereas the other 2 vary from 5-15days.

[whitey]

Just had a bike24 order delivered ordered last Tuesday, delivered Thursday. Not bad service - packaging isnt great. Price was right though.

[BigVin]

Yeah Ribble are my 1st choice for pretty much everything.

[Iced Halo]

PBK = BAD service.

Will not be purchasing again from them in future.

Bought some expensive Look pedals I've had some issues with- no reply regarding questions.

Bought a Torque wrench as well that was faulty- didn't click or give an indication when reaching the torque setting.

They refunded the money but refused to pay return shipping stating they "tested and it was fine". Its pretty obvious with a torque wrench if it works or not...

Didn't follow up on this as the shipping back was just a few dollars, but makes me reconsider any future purchases from them.

[triangle]

Babici = awesome.

Ordered a Babici kit (jersey, arm warmers, bib knicks and musset bag) on Monday 28 Feb. Used my babiciride code from Ride magazine and got a $30 discount. Arrived in Perth this morning (Thursday 3 March) on my doorstep with a free cap and some bumper stickers thrown in plus a Babici card with a handwritten note of thanks from Kev Babakian. Awesome. Beautiful gear, great, personalised service.