Wiggle and Chain Reaction owner facing “severe liquidity and profitability challenges” as it announces delisting of shares

Living in the Netherlands used to buy sis food and dhb cycling kit (very good value).
At wiggle. I just bought new dhb knee warmers, had a pair that lasted 5 years. Used every autum/winter/spring day to cycle to work. I first bought a pair from le col and one from gore but both suck !
So it's dhb from wiggle ! After brexit (why stupids ?) I buy at bike24, the best.period.
Exotic light parts at R2 bike, simple parts at Mantel , and stuff needed overnight at futurem shop..

Another ex-Wiggle customer. Used to buy everything there, but the redesign and removal of wish list and logical filters just made searching an absolute pain. Like a jumble sale, or Amazon, or something shite like that.

These days I use Bikeinn, TotalCycling, Bike24, Merlin, EBay... almost anyone else.

Not only is their website a bag of sh!te So is their customer service - never able to actually deal with a human if there is a problem and then they cap it all off by using evri, I mean who wouldn't want the worst delivery company dealing with items of any value?

I think Wiggle/CRC is struggling with the big challenge faced throughout the bike industry; people simply aren't buying right now. 

Loads of reasons for this, but one that no one really talks about (although Bike Food's comment is reflective of it), is how the continuous march of capitalism and big business is affecting the industry as a whole.

Working to the premise that everyone has a finite amount of free wealth that they can spend on their hobby, how that money is being spent has been changed by big corporates moving in / sharpening up their game in recent years. 

Cycling is seriously expensive now (always was really), and as bikes, products etc. become ever more advanced, better marketed, and therefore more costly, people are commiting greater amounts of money to fewer items. 

The uptake of virtual cycling has reduced spend on consumables, clothing, winter riding equipment etc etc. It has however moved spend to indoor trainers, fans, computer screens, subscriptions, a lot of which are high ticket items and likely recent purchases. 

The big brands have upped their game, bikes are more expensive, less compatible with home mechanics, OEM Parts made more desirable / premium. Essentially, the big boys are understandably working hard to ensure they capture as much of that available free spend as possible. That’s just good business, in capitalism there are winners and losers and right now retailers are losing.

I can’t see any way this situation will improve, unless people suddenly reject the indoor trainer, and the industry marketing wheel somehow stops being able to sell the bigger, faster, better, dream to us consumers.

In summary, Wiggle and their ilk are doomed.  

But they still include a pack of Haribo with orders so there's that.

Wiggle used to be my first (and usually last port of call) for anything I needed cycling/tri related but now its not necessarily even on the list of places I check-in on.  Ultimately what it used to be was i) easy to navigate; ii) well stocked (and had specialist stuff not the mainstream halfords, CRC stuff); iii) good value.  Now I find navigating it a pain, the stocking situation is a disaster, the stuff you might want is listed but never in stock and instead there is just endless junk, add to that there are an increasing number of performance brands I can't get there and its not worth me investing enough there to maintain a loyalty discount - without which the value, if you can find what you want in stock is now "fine" but not market leading.

It's funny that the article mentions Sigma because whilst it doesn't necessarily offer the best value, it has an excellent selection of performance kit that is easy to navigate and puts an effort in to keep you appraised of stock and when they are expecting deliveries of items - as such it has now become my default.

Wiggle used to be a high quality retailer - now its just CRC with a different badge!

Chain Reaction is such a sad story, especially as someone from NI. A successful local company, bought up by a competitor, losing everything unique about it. And now bought up again by venture capitalists which will probably shut it down in the end because it isn't making them enough money. Someone's getting rich in all this but I feel bad for people who work there.

Terrible website redesign aside (its simply the lack of filters and menu options for products that make it extremely hard to find anything) Wiggle is still competitive for me, at least when you take into account postage. £20 per year and you get unlimited next day delivery - that still makes it better than most.

Not as good as the old pre CR merger days though, we all know that...

Let's be fair, we'd tolerate a sub par website if the prices and customer service were enough of a makeweight. Fact is, the overall package of Wiggle/CRC has been awful for a long time.

Wiggle is a text book example of how to destroy an existing brand. However I suspect the "updated" website was a plan to destroy Wiggle and reduce the number of bike websites that the new parent now has. Why would you need the german websites along with probikekit, chain reaction and wiggle?

'the company claimed its drop in international sales of 26 per cent was “driven mainly by the full year impact of Brexit reducing sales into the EU, where higher duty and fulfilment costs have necessitated higher pricing”.   No, you don't say. 😂 

COVID and working from home ever since largely stopped my online purchasing, I ride indoors so much more now, barely buy anything, probably used to spend £300 per month when commuting and riding outdoors more.

I'm guessing Wiggle will just end end up doing a phoenix and pass the burden of their mistakes on to their suppliers and buy their own stock cheap like Source BMX did. I can't see this ending well for the brands.

From my perspective, the rot started with the Wiggle CRC merger - you used to be able to get what you needed from one or the other.  When they both became the same, if one didn't have it, neither did the other.  I suspect that their joint market share subsequently fell.  Then the webside debacle.  As it stands, the chances of them having what I want is close to zero - if they do have something, it's probably in a clown size, or only in zebra-stripes with dayglo spots

I think (without a vast amount of evidence, I admit) that there is a change happening in the industry where online shopping for bike parts, clothing etc. is moving from 'supermarkets' like Wiggle to shopping direct from manufacturers' websites. This is particularly true for expensive things (bikes, wheels, really nice clothing, etc.) leaving Wiggle selling the cheap commodity items like inner tubes and new chains.

I blame their shocking new Wiggle website. It's absolute trash.

My spending on bike related items has fallen through the floor.  Prices are too high, so I just purchase to replace things that have broken/worn out only.  I don't even really browse anymore because prices are too much of a turn-off.  The sad thing is that every single retail option in my area is gone, so they I should be a cash cow for them.

Maybe they should have looked a bit closer at the financial forecasts before pissing their money up the wall buying Wiggle/CRC in the first place.

Classic leveraged buyout scam.