Wiggle are being Nobs

Dhb, vitus and nukeproof are probably the biggest of their own brands.
Mike Ashley has loads of commercial property so maybe you could see cycling gear integrated into what he currently has.
As much as people hate him he has saved a number of businesses and I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested unless they had thought it could be viable

He already has Evans injected into all of his other ventures, and the cycling stuff that Sports Direct did before aquiring Evans.

lost nearly 100 million last year

that's no chicken feed is it... christ

It's such a crazy state of affairs... squeeze out/shut down the LBSs and smaller retailers by selling stuff at prices they can't compete with -> lose tens of millions of pounds -> go into administration.

Obviously that's a simplification and there are other factors at play, but it's such a sad indictment of this type of business model.

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Where is the cheapest place to buy some High5 tabs now

Decrackalon?

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/browse/b/high5/_/N-a7zb8p

As terrible as it was, that recent rebranding exercise must have taken a lot of time and cost a lot of cash. Wonder why they bothered going through with that unless they totally didn’t foresee this.

Wonder why they bothered going through with that unless they totally didn’t foresee this.

I've seen it before where a large amount of capital is spent on a vanity project just before the demise of the company. If it were me I'd be investigating if there are any connections between any senior executives and the company that did the website redesign/overhaul.

Assume they started working on it a year or two ago when the outlook might have been different, and by the time they knew they were in trouble it wasn't worth writing off all that work vs getting it over the line.

Ironically there's never been a greater need for the 'sort by discount' filter.

Wonder why they bothered going through with that unless they totally didn’t foresee this.

To extract some money from the company into the bank account of a contractor specially chosen for their relationship to a director eh, I mean their skills.

Or is that just being cynical.

Edit: @Greenbank in there like swimwear ahead of me.

I ordered something from there yesterday morning with next day delivery, showed as shipped but it hasn’t been picked up yet…

Seen similar in other industries.

Kodak introducing APS which they never intended to make stick, it was just to force small independants out of business because they either spent more money than they had/could make back buying the machinery to deal with it or they didn't buy the machine and lost all their customers and went out of business.

Assume they started working on it a year or two ago

That took a year?!

Big IT project. sucks teeth

Hasn't this all happened because some venture capital was pulled out ? I'm surprised they managed to loss £100 mill last year that's nuts.

I'll be sorry to see them go, they were my first port of call for general cycling needs, but less so in recent year, even lost my platinum discount recently.

where do I go now for general consumables, chains, cassettes, brake pads now if I don't want to pay lbs prices.

Merlin

where do I go now for general consumables, chains, cassettes, brake pads now if I don't want to pay lbs prices.

Google it. CRC/Wiggle were not often the cheapest result.

SJS

Evans

They had a big push into their FWE brand just before it all fell to pieces - FWE hats, tops, stems, seat posts, whatever

I assume its a process of "here, this is the thing that will save us" followed by a rapid descent when it doesnt work and remaining cash has been spent

The limited edition 100 years of evans socks where great . Pound a pair in the sale.

Coincidentally Wiggle just came out with a Castelli collab of autumnal cycling clothing, that they’re selling at reduced prices and are not doing well at advertising.

Not Wiggle but surprised to read Isla Bikes are shutting up shop:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/27/uk-childrens-cycle-maker-islabikes-to-shut-after-nearly-18-years

Although, would be surprised if anyone buys them new nowadays, which must hurt sales

Not sure their branding team thought this one through...

https://www.wiggle.com/p/castelli-fly-jack-sey

Just got a refund from Wiggle for some £180 handlebars I returned on 16th Oct. Yodel tracking hadn't updated since 19th and Wiggle hadn't responded to my queries so I was beginning to panic that I'd end up losing the bars and the cash!