Wiggle empire building continues

arlowood

Business news this morning reports that WiggleCRC have made a bid to acquire Bike24 the German online retailer

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/wiggle ... e24/022053

If you were thinking of sourcing anything from Bike24 then maybe act sooner rather than later. No telling what effect a takover bid will have on their morale and customer service

cooldad

I'm a fan of Wiggle and CRC, can't see a problem.

bendertherobot

Might be an EU angle here.

shiznit76

cooldad wrote:

I'm a fan of Wiggle and CRC, can't see a problem.

Ditto, excellent service, great prices no issues when returning items, oh, and they give you a wee packet of Haribo with your orders too!

sloppyschleckonds

Have Wiggle reached a dominant market position? Cheap prices, price matching, quick free delivery, 365 day returns and excellent customer service.

vinnymarsden

I dont actually see an issue with Wiggle gaining a European foothold....good luck to them...business model is clearly the one to follow...well done to them I say!!

redvision

VinnyMarsden wrote:

I dont actually see an issue with Wiggle gaining a European foothold....good luck to them...business model is clearly the one to follow...well done to them I say!!

Business wise they are clearly doing well, but from a consumer pov, since they purchased CRC there has definitely been a decline in service and prices are not as competitive as before. The acquisition of another shop further reduces competition and that can only be a bad thing for customers.

veronese68

bendertherobot wrote:

Might be an EU angle here.

My thoughts exactly.

antonyfromoz

i went off Wiggle based on their response to my being one day late realising that some gift vouchers had expired - when I contacted them to see if there was anything I could do they just said tough luck so I cancelled my account. I realise that they were within their rights to refuse to honour the gift vouchers as there was an expiry date on the print out I was given (they were a present) but in my opinion a more customer focussed organisation would have made at least a token effort to appease me especially as I had had an account with them for years and bought a reasonable number of things in the past. I know that other businesses I have worked for or dealt with in the past have done similar things before in similar circumstances for their customers. The greater the range of businesses they own just means the fewer I will buy from (I'm pretty bloody minded/petty when it comes to things like this and they got the gift voucher money for nothing so they get nothing else from me even if I pay more elsewhere).

964cup

Still plenty of competition out there, but it will want watching. I still split my spend between Wiggle, Sigma, uByk, Probikekit and Merlin, mostly, with a shout out to SJS for being the spares meisters and to PlanetX for amazing bargains on consumables like tub tape and random vintage bits. My activity with the Germans (bike24, starbike, Rose) has diminished since sterling collapsed post-referendum, although Starbike are still the only real alternative to uByk for high-end kit (THM, Schmolke, eeCycleworks etc). Wiggle's biggest issue is lack of stock consistency - for a start they need to do unified stock control across their own and CRC's warehouses; they'll have even more fun trying to digest bike24's inventory. It's very hard to unpick any upward pricing effect the WIggle/CRC merger has had from currency effects.

Still, even if Wiggle buy bike24, that's 8 other retailers namechecked in my post alone. We're hardly in a monopoly yet. The interesting outlier for me is Ribble, whose pricing is no longer competitive for anything, IME. I don't see them lasting unless they can make enough money on their own-brand bikes.

cooldad

antonyfromoz wrote:

i went off Wiggle based on their response to my being one day late realising that some gift vouchers had expired - when I contacted them to see if there was anything I could do they just said tough luck so I cancelled my account. I realise that they were within their rights to refuse to honour the gift vouchers as there was an expiry date on the print out I was given (they were a present) but in my opinion a more customer focussed organisation would have made at least a token effort to appease me especially as I had had an account with them for years and bought a reasonable number of things in the past. I know that other businesses I have worked for or dealt with in the past have done similar things before in similar circumstances for their customers. The greater the range of businesses they own just means the fewer I will buy from (I'm pretty bloody minded/petty when it comes to things like this and they got the gift voucher money for nothing so they get nothing else from me even if I pay more elsewhere).

I blame Wiggle.

And diddums.

ck101

Bad for the consumer. Having said that there’s enough online retailers for this to pass the EU bods. They are making this purchase to get them into the German market.

antonyfromoz

cooldad wrote:

antonyfromoz wrote:

i went off Wiggle based on their response to my being one day late realising that some gift vouchers had expired - when I contacted them to see if there was anything I could do they just said tough luck so I cancelled my account. I realise that they were within their rights to refuse to honour the gift vouchers as there was an expiry date on the print out I was given (they were a present) but in my opinion a more customer focussed organisation would have made at least a token effort to appease me especially as I had had an account with them for years and bought a reasonable number of things in the past. I know that other businesses I have worked for or dealt with in the past have done similar things before in similar circumstances for their customers. The greater the range of businesses they own just means the fewer I will buy from (I'm pretty bloody minded/petty when it comes to things like this and they got the gift voucher money for nothing so they get nothing else from me even if I pay more elsewhere).

I blame Wiggle.

And diddums.

So did I, obviously. And diddums, seriously?

sloppyschleckonds

Ck101 wrote:

Bad for the consumer.

Why?

timothyw

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Ck101 wrote:

Bad for the consumer.

Why?

Pop quiz - will they use their increased market share to:
A) Reduce prices, increase range of products they offer
Consolidate (reduce) range of products they offer across the three outlets, use increased buying power to cut their costs, while maintaining current prices as they now have less competition to drive prices down?

Honestly, if you can provide any sane economic reason why this could be good for consumers I'm all ears.

Which is to say nothing of all the chain reaction staff that got the sack...

trivial_poursuivant

Ck101 wrote:

Bad for the consumer. Having said that there’s enough online retailers for this to pass the EU bods. They are making this purchase to get them into the German market.

They were already big in the German market. Www.wigglesport.de has been around for years. They have a warehouse in Belgium too for mainland Europe distribution

flasher

and to think that they were my LBS when growing up in Portsmouth!

ck101

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ck101 wrote:

Bad for the consumer. Having said that there’s enough online retailers for this to pass the EU bods. They are making this purchase to get them into the German market.

They were already big in the German market. http://Www.wigglesport.de has been around for years. They have a warehouse in Belgium too for mainland Europe distribution

Ok this is what I should have said; they are doing this to dominate the German market.

The hold they will now have on Manufacturers is also to be considered never mind the consumer.

trivial_poursuivant

Ck101 wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ck101 wrote:

Bad for the consumer. Having said that there’s enough online retailers for this to pass the EU bods. They are making this purchase to get them into the German market.

They were already big in the German market. http://Www.wigglesport.de has been around for years. They have a warehouse in Belgium too for mainland Europe distribution

Ok this is what I should have said; they are doing this to dominate the German market.

The hold they will now have on Manufacturers is also to be considered never mind the consumer.

They won’t, Germany has a few good online shops already well established that wiggle , who already have a market share, are not outdoing. Buying one out doesn’t make them dominant. Besides Germans buy a lot more from high street shops than UK do. I lived there for a long time and their shopping habits are much different than ours.

ck101

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ck101 wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ck101 wrote:

Bad for the consumer. Having said that there’s enough online retailers for this to pass the EU bods. They are making this purchase to get them into the German market.

They were already big in the German market. http://Www.wigglesport.de has been around for years. They have a warehouse in Belgium too for mainland Europe distribution

Ok this is what I should have said; they are doing this to dominate the German market.

The hold they will now have on Manufacturers is also to be considered never mind the consumer.

They won’t, Germany has a few good online shops already well established that wiggle , who already have a market share, are not outdoing. Buying one out doesn’t make them dominant. Besides Germans buy a lot more from high street shops than UK do. I lived there for a long time and their shopping habits are much different than ours.

Fair points, maybe its to offset the risk Brexit poses. Next they’ll be moving their HQ to Frankfurt.

mfin

Ck101 wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ck101 wrote:

Bad for the consumer. Having said that there’s enough online retailers for this to pass the EU bods. They are making this purchase to get them into the German market.

They were already big in the German market. http://Www.wigglesport.de has been around for years. They have a warehouse in Belgium too for mainland Europe distribution

Ok this is what I should have said; they are doing this to dominate the German market.

The hold they will now have on Manufacturers is also to be considered never mind the consumer.

On a broad level, Germany's level of online retailing to consumers is lagging behind the UK, but of course, this means there is plenty of potential growth to be had for Wiggle who's sales are all online and for any other online retailer.

So, it's likely a simple case of getting maximum market share out of a growing market, sort of what you said in a way I suppose.

trivial_poursuivant

The most popular brand sold in Germany you would think may be Canyon or Rose cos they are purely online retail, but Focus and Cube were by far the most popular bikes I used to see when I lived there. Plenty of bikes like Giant and other big brands as you’d expect but Focus and Cube are sold by the big chain stores. Nearly every shop I went into sold one or the other or both. Especially when it comes to Mountain bikes. Germans also buy a lot more town bikes and electric bikes than the UK cos as a nation they cycle a lot more - mainly cos they have a brilliant cycling infrastructure with dedicated cycle paths which can take you anywhere. If you move away from road bikes and think of general cycling of all varieties then shops do a massive trade compared to LBS in Uk

meesterbond

bendertherobot wrote:

Might be an EU angle here.

Good shout... bit of a post-Brexit play. No telling what'll happen post 2019 so probably a good time to get a foothold on the continent.

cal_stewart

mfin wrote:

Ck101 wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

Ck101 wrote:

Bad for the consumer. Having said that there’s enough online retailers for this to pass the EU bods. They are making this purchase to get them into the German market.

They were already big in the German market. http://Www.wigglesport.de has been around for years. They have a warehouse in Belgium too for mainland Europe distribution

Ok this is what I should have said; they are doing this to dominate the German market.

The hold they will now have on Manufacturers is also to be considered never mind the consumer.

On a broad level, Germany's level of online retailing to consumers is lagging behind the UK, but of course, this means there is plenty of potential growth to be had for Wiggle who's sales are all online and for any other online retailer.

So, it's likely a simple case of getting maximum market share out of a growing market, sort of what you said in a way I suppose.

This, the Germans are starting to move online slowly this could prove to be a great move for wiggle

mfin

Cal_Stewart wrote:

This, the Germans are starting to move online slowly this could prove to be a great move for wiggle

Yep, and m&a strategies are about growth, so the market share here of interest to them is better seen as the share to be had of the growing market. People when looking through their consumer lenses often think m&a is do with eliminating competition in order to be dominant, buying your way towards a monopoly, it's far too simplistic a way of looking at things and it's pretty much always wrong.

dennisn

antonyfromoz wrote:

i went off Wiggle based on their response to my being one day late realising that some gift vouchers had expired - when I contacted them to see if there was anything I could do they just said tough luck so I cancelled my account. I realise that they were within their rights to refuse to honour the gift vouchers as there was an expiry date on the print out I was given (they were a present) but in my opinion a more customer focussed organisation would have made at least a token effort to appease me especially as I had had an account with them for years and bought a reasonable number of things in the past. I know that other businesses I have worked for or dealt with in the past have done similar things before in similar circumstances for their customers. The greater the range of businesses they own just means the fewer I will buy from (I'm pretty bloody minded/petty when it comes to things like this and they got the gift voucher money for nothing so they get nothing else from me even if I pay more elsewhere).

You're blaming Wiggle for your own incompetence?

antonyfromoz

dennisn wrote:

antonyfromoz wrote:

i went off Wiggle based on their response to my being one day late realising that some gift vouchers had expired - when I contacted them to see if there was anything I could do they just said tough luck so I cancelled my account. I realise that they were within their rights to refuse to honour the gift vouchers as there was an expiry date on the print out I was given (they were a present) but in my opinion a more customer focussed organisation would have made at least a token effort to appease me especially as I had had an account with them for years and bought a reasonable number of things in the past. I know that other businesses I have worked for or dealt with in the past have done similar things before in similar circumstances for their customers. The greater the range of businesses they own just means the fewer I will buy from (I'm pretty bloody minded/petty when it comes to things like this and they got the gift voucher money for nothing so they get nothing else from me even if I pay more elsewhere).

You're blaming Wiggle for your own incompetence?

mmmm, comprehension is not your strong point, is it? Or perhaps you are just trying to be provocative. Either way, re-read the post and switch on your brain before responding.

dennisn

antonyfromoz wrote:

dennisn wrote:

antonyfromoz wrote:

i went off Wiggle based on their response to my being one day late realising that some gift vouchers had expired - when I contacted them to see if there was anything I could do they just said tough luck so I cancelled my account. I realise that they were within their rights to refuse to honour the gift vouchers as there was an expiry date on the print out I was given (they were a present) but in my opinion a more customer focussed organisation would have made at least a token effort to appease me especially as I had had an account with them for years and bought a reasonable number of things in the past. I know that other businesses I have worked for or dealt with in the past have done similar things before in similar circumstances for their customers. The greater the range of businesses they own just means the fewer I will buy from (I'm pretty bloody minded/petty when it comes to things like this and they got the gift voucher money for nothing so they get nothing else from me even if I pay more elsewhere).

You're blaming Wiggle for your own incompetence?

mmmm, comprehension is not your strong point, is it? Or perhaps you are just trying to be provocative. Either way, re-read the post and switch on your brain before responding.

Here's how I see it. YOU, repeat, YOU let these coupons expire. Yet somehow YOU have turned this into Wiggle's problem. Quit crying and get over it. I realize that your perfect world has been shattered but next time pay a little bit more attention to these things.

arthur_scrimshaw

Flasher wrote:

and to think that they were my LBS when growing up in Portsmouth!

I bought my wife a mountain bike from Butlers in the early 90's - amazing to think Wiggle came from that tiny store.

darkhairedlord

Flasher wrote:

and to think that they were my LBS when growing up in Portsmouth!

I blame Flasher.

svetty

dennisn wrote:

antonyfromoz wrote:

dennisn wrote:

antonyfromoz wrote:

.... I'm pretty bloody minded/petty when it comes to things like this.......

You're blaming Wiggle for your own incompetence?

mmmm, comprehension is not your strong point, is it? Or perhaps you are just trying to be provocative. Either way, re-read the post and switch on your brain before responding.

Here's how I see it. YOU, repeat, YOU let these coupons expire. Yet somehow YOU have turned this into Wiggle's problem. Quit crying and get over it. I realize that your perfect world has been shattered but next time pay a little bit more attention to these things.

This should be good.....