Why don't I use Wiggle?

[BeeKeeper]

I used Wiggle recently and the items (brake blocks) arrived very promptly by post. Unfortunately, I had ordered the wrong ones so had to return them - which was where the fun began. Their website asks you to fill in a returns form - but I was unable to find it. At this point I discovered their main weakness - they have no telephone number! This being the weekend I e-mailed them and on Monday was given a link which was no help so I then tried their on-line chat line, which is only open Mon-Fri. The reply was quick but it pointed me to the useless Returns Page which only mentions the Returns Form but not where to find it. I needed the form to get the address to send the items to (I know there is no legal requirement for a Return Form to be completed by the customer) but the only address on their website is their registered address - which might be their solicitors or accountants for all I knew.

Anyway, after more "chat" I was told to send the items to their registered address without the returns form, which we never found.

The company has promptly refunded me so at one level (good service) I have no complaints but I will not use them again. A company without a telephone number does not in my view present itself as very customer focussed.

Wiggle is an interesting company - your LBS it certainly isn't: http://www.betasia.com/cycling-news/493 ... uity-house

[porky]

If anyone is unhappy with Wiggle, or any other supplier, because of their choice of courier then tell them. They use these couriers becuase they are cheap (I used to buy courier serices for a large business and found that couriers will offer very large discounts to get business), but if they are made aware that it is costing them business then they will re-think. I am sure that if enough customers complain to Wiggle about City Link they will, at least, offer another dispatch method.

For the same reasons I have today written to my bank to tell them that I will close my account if they ever send me another bank card using DX.

Royal Mail may not be the cheapest for business users but they are the best. Today my postie delivered a parcel of bike bits (from the excellent Woolley Hat Shop) to my mother-in-law who lives up the road from me, because he knows I am at work.

[ChrisButch]

I must be really lucky.

Indeed you are. The only two BSs practically accessible in this area offer nothing beyond kids' bikes and BSOs, with staff expertise to match, and thus can hardly be construed as your 'LBS' within the meaning of the Act. Conversely, having frequently used not only Wiggle but plenty of other internet suppliers, large and small, in recent years, I can't recall a single problem either with the retailers themselves or their many different couriers. So maybe, given some of the experiences related on this thread, I too am lucky, for different reasons...and I concede that it must help that there's usually somebody in the house, so failed deliveries are rare.

[JohnW]

........... I too am lucky, for different reasons...and I concede that it must help that there's usually somebody in the house, so failed deliveries are rare.

Certainly helps, doesn't it?

However, I once had a delivery from Parcel Force. I was upstairs mending something at the time, so I knocked on the window and waved to the guy.

When I got downstairs to the door, man and van had vanished, and not left the parcel.

I never got the parcel - the card left by the guy told me he'd be back "tomorrow". He wasn't. There was a number to phone, shown on the card. No-one answered. Whatever the delivery comprised, I hadn't paid for it, and I assumed that it was trade samples.

Never being able to discover what the parcel was, or who'd sent it, I was never able to tell the people who'd sent it - and paid for it's carriage and delivery - that they hadn't got what they paid for.

[BigFoz]

I used to use Wiggle a lot, but over the last couple of years their prices have gradually risen, I still do comparisons, but haven't bought much at all in the last 2 years as they never win out. And I have had a couple of City Link issues, one I was in the house, heard the door bell, by the time I got there he was driving off down the road - must have taken me all of 20-25sec to get to the door, meaning he must have rung the bell and walked off with no intention of delivering. I also avoid City Link if possible as now we've moved it's a very long way to the "local" depot.

That being said I did use Wiggle for something just before Christmas, and while price wasn't great, they had stock and I needed parts. Delivery was small box by Royal Mail.

LBS does not factor - one I use occasionally for small consumables, because I get on well with staff, bit of a sympathy buy occasionally. The other thinks I'm weird because I use Campag, rarely stocks anything I want, and isn't hugely helpful, and costs a lot more than WWW shops. In fact almost every time I've bought anything there I come out in a bad mood.

[Eammno]

I'll never forget a school trip to a GPO (does that date this story?)sorting office where parcels and packages had overflowed their 'area' into a walkway, and the workers just walked over them.

I can't believe deliverys (and any other visits) to private addresses still happen during the day, there must be so much undelivered stuff riding round in vans, and time wasted knocking on empty addresses.

[JohnW]

.............LBS does not factor - one I use occasionally for small consumables, because I get on well with staff, bit of a sympathy buy occasionally. The other thinks I'm weird because I use Campag, rarely stocks anything I want, and isn't hugely helpful, and costs a lot more than WWW shops. In fact almost every time I've bought anything there I come out in a bad mood.

I'm really sorry to hear that BigFox - our LBSs in these parts are very good indeed. Whereabouts are you?

[Alex L]

If anyone is unhappy with Wiggle, or any other supplier, because of their choice of courier then tell them. They use these couriers becuase they are cheap (I used to buy courier serices for a large business and found that couriers will offer very large discounts to get business), but if they are made aware that it is costing them business then they will re-think. I am sure that if enough customers complain to Wiggle about City Link they will, at least, offer another dispatch method.

I emailed them. The reply was along the lines of: sorry, staying with CityLink.

[BigFoz]

Now they're owned by a private equity firm, I guess there will be less "ownership" of the brand, and a slide in service...

[JohnW]

Now they're owned by a private equity firm, I guess there will be less "ownership" of the brand, and a slide in service...

Something else I didn't know. Is that Wiggle, or CityLink, or both?

[gbnz]

.............LBS does not factor - one I use occasionally for small consumables, because I get on well with staff, bit of a sympathy buy occasionally. The other thinks I'm weird because I use Campag, rarely stocks anything I want, and isn't hugely helpful, and costs a lot more than WWW shops. In fact almost every time I've bought anything there I come out in a bad mood.

I'm really sorry to hear that BigFox - our LBSs in these parts are very good indeed. Whereabouts are you?

I note you live down in Yorkshire. When I lived in Yorkshire, as recently as seven years ago, I not once, ever used an internet supplier. I had at least seven LBS's that I knew of within an easy ride (20 miles) and a host of others I never had a need to look at.

In contrast in the far reaches of Northumberland, I've occasionally had a shop open within twenty or thirty miles, open long enough for me to become aware of it, prior to it closing, another recent full price bicycle showroom; and one excellant LBS, which is still not anywhere near as good for acquiring bit's I need as an online supplier.

An online supplier is essential, I merely wish I didn't have to spend a day travelling to obtain parts I've acquired (Not ever been a problem with crc, sjs, spa)

[94inchandy]

i will never use wiggle after the way i was treated, i was after a training frame, i go by the top tube, so i asked for the ver top tube,
i have problems will using the phone as i am autistic, and i sent a email to them, they do not do business this way,
i will alway deal with http://parker-international.co.uk as they will answer my emails and give my the info i need,

i am not one of these so called cyclist, i cover 12-14k miles a year,
hope this helps you, http://twitter.com/94inchandy

[Si]

Just had a wiggle order come via city-link.

I think that they have lost the plot with the packaging. I ordered an MTB handle bar (admittedly a riser bar so it isn't an absolutely straight tube), and how big was the box that it came in? Two and a half by two and a half by half a foot...ie a wheel box!

[JohnW]

Just had a wiggle order come via city-link.

I think that they have lost the plot with the packaging. I ordered an MTB handle bar (admittedly a riser bar so it isn't an absolutely straight tube), and how big was the box that it came in? Two and a half by two and a half by half a foot...ie a wheel box!

Hey - never mind the box Si - Wiggle sent what you asked for, and at least you received it.

Which doesn't appear to be everyone's experience.

Rejoice !!!

[drossall]

No specific issue with Wiggle but:

If anyone is unhappy with Wiggle, or any other supplier, because of their choice of courier then tell them. They use these couriers becuase they are cheap..., but if they are made aware that it is costing them business then they will re-think...

Royal Mail may not be the cheapest for business users but they are the best.

+1.

The problem is that the mail-order supplier buys the delivery service but the customer suffers it, so there isn't really a direct consequence to the service if they make collection difficult. However good and reliable a service might be, if it takes the product 30 miles away to a depot when the mail-order shop was only 25 miles away in the first place, the customer is not going to be happy.

No political axe to grind but, for the private individual, I can't see that the break up of Royal Mail has been anything but a bad thing, introducing lots of cheaper suppliers that don't have the infrastructure to cope with getting stuff to you if you're out at work when they come along.