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Thrustvector
I found the new site to be very difficult to navigate- I was trying to find luggage and simply could not do so. My girlfriend could, however, so I was able to find out that what I wanted wasn’t in stock.
The redundancy news is terrible for those affected- I hope they all get better jobs with better companies.
I’ve been on Rapha Travel trips and the team who delivered them was excellent- but they were terribly marketed and promoted. Still, a loss to Rapha.
I do wonder what is next for Rapha, they’ve managed to get a bunch of dedicated people to work long hours for little pay- and now sacked many of them. Once they lose employee loyalty they have little to replace it with, given pay and conditions are hardly likely to improve now.
I suspected something was up when they shut the cafe section of the shops at 16:30- I was just surprised that they did something so obviously “oh shit we are going bust” to a customer facing team- normally the last place to face the axe as if consumer lose faith in their ability to get warranty support you are screwed for new (non-deep-discount) sales.
Overall this is a real shame and the damage to the people is real, but blame is squarely with Rapha management who drove the company to this point.