Goodbye to all that?

World beating!

kil0ran wrote:

Stock availability in the UK has been so bad over the summer that I've bought most stuff from Germany - Bikester, BikeDiscount, Bike24 etc. Hugely efficient delivery, and nearly always via DPD, and cheaper than UK prices in most cases. 

Agree entirely, UK stock levels abysmal, CO2, chamois cream, inner tubes, basic items either not in stock or with hiked up prices. If any of the reatailers read these forums then they need to wake up quickly before they risk permanent loss of customers like myself.

Simple logistics mean that it will only get worse from Jan 31st. I do wonder if we'll see a resurgent local manufacturing sector for all things bike related because its going to be much harder and much more expensive to import things. With Wiggle/CR dominating the online market there's certainly a risk of collusion and price fixing between them & Madison once we start paying duty & VAT on non-UK sourced goods.

It's strange that the party that pushes competition as being the driving force for improving service and quality, is now pushing to limit the choices we have in the market place. It's almost as if they've been lying all along.

I think that level of economics-based policy disappeared a long time ago. It was certainly there in 1979, whether or not that was beneficial is a major topic of its own and of course somewhat controversial...

But now we have transactional governments interested only in staying in power by marketing policies that they think voters will like, rather than doing what they think is the right thing. So any foundation in logic has gone; dogma remains, which is why D Harding runs testing services that are bought from big outsourcing providers who can't make a success of catering and repeatedly breach SLAs without sanction.

Hence Brexit has to include exit from the single market and customs union in case we (Joe Public) think we have been betrayed and we still can't have bent bananas and inches. It doesn't matter that this goes against all principles of economics lesson 1 because the politicians will not risk their positions to do the right thing for the long term.

Grr...

don simon fbpe wrote:

It's strange that the party that pushes competition as being the driving force for improving service and quality, is now pushing to limit the choices we have in the market place. It's almost as if they've been lying all along.

Competition, yes, but their rules permit and often encourage unfair (and unethical) competition. The concept of a 'level playing field' goes against everything they stand for.

A free market doesn't necessarily improve choice, quality or service while privatisation of public services (transport, utilities) is flogging off public goods cheaply and leaving them in very greedy private hands.

The Royal Mail was forced to have to accept bulk mail from rival companies and lose money doing the last part "to door" delivery.

That was never the "Free" market.

Set up to fail.

In addition having to guarantee post throughout teh nation at a set fee. I don't believe that their "free-market competition" has to meet this bar

Because if you get bad service from one you can stop using them and choose a better alternative.

If you get bad service from a monopoly there's nothing you can do.

I've had absolutely awful customer service from the royal mail multiple times in the past. I'm glad that I no longer have to give them my custom.

I don't think I've ever been offered a choice of courier when placing an order. You get whatever the seller is using, and most of the time they don't tell you who that is until after you've ordered. You might be able to influence who they use in future by complaints (or compliments) about the service, but there's no real way to choose.

Of course, it would make more sense if most of those vans/cars were replaced by cargo bikes...

Some sites offer a choice. I can't remember how many I've used that do but one example is Bike-Discount.de who give free delivery on orders over 99€ or you can specify DHL at a normal/fair price.