Online Purchases - good and bad experiences

[Newcastle Dave]

Ordered a pair of knicks from Assos (direct from their website), late Sunday afternoon (21/5), delivered to my door 30 minutes ago (11:30 am, 25/5) - Shipped from Switzerland
Same time I ordered something from Perth, its still in transit somewhere ??

[Mr Purple]

It's not often you get service that's so ridiculously good you have to post it somewhere, but I've experienced that now.

Sick of burning through expensive material saddle bags, I finally bit the bullet and ordered a couple of 'Aeroclams' from Cyckit. Hard plastic shells that clamp to the rear saddle rails.

https://www.cyckit.com/

It's the most crazily efficient process I've ever gone through. The guy has huge attention to detail, he's either proper OCD or (more likely) has been bitten by moron customers before! You start by e-mailing him your saddles, and within a day he'll send you back a photo with advice and photos of the packs fitted to other customer's identical saddles.

Product arrived within a week and fitted immaculately on both my bikes:







Being hard shell you obviously have to pad/wrap anything hard inside them to stop rattles, but otherwise I had absolutely no issues. They do a kit with three different sizes of pack for not a huge amount either.

Do recommend. I'd pretty much given up on saddle bags and was using a cycling wallet for the last few months. This looks like that'll sort that out.

[Mike Ayling]

Decathlon - I ordered three of their general purpose 3 to 8 speed chains because the postage would have been the same for three as for one.
The first arrived after about a week.
The second arrived about a week after the first and the third about a week later. They must have lost money on the postage!

[cancan64]

Wanted an Exposure Light helmet mount, nothing in NZ but Pushys had them so went into the store when I was in Canberra for work but they didnt have them but told me they were in Brisbane so figured as I was flying back to NZ via Brisbane the next week I would order it online and get it delivered to where I was staying the Friday night before flying out, selected express post just to be safe, figured 5 days to get from south of Brisbane to north of Brisbane should be enough.
Order placed Monday 7:30am
Australia Post received shipping notice Thursday 3pm Nearly 4 days to pick and pack 2 small items
and then it had to be signed for. I called Australia Post and they confirmed that since it cant be signed for or left in a safe place it would be at the local postoffice for collection Saturday morning... still time to get it before flying home
and then Australia Post lost it
Now back in NZ, no idea where the helmet mount is.
Should have known better, but at least my order I placed from a NZ shop was waiting for me when I got home... 2 days after I ordered it from the otherside of the country to a regional town.

[stevenaaus]

BikeInn (TradeInn) really did me over. Bought a GXP BB for $50, but just went to install it today, a few months later. They'd sent me some unusual BB that doesn't even have notches to screw it in! PT1SMXTR
The only notches are on the inside of the cups, behind the pressed in bearing. That'll learn me for using dodgy overseas sites.
Here's a picture of it (different colour/model) . I'm sure it's a big seller. NB No notches! Does anyone have a clue what this is for.
EDIT the bearings pop out..maybe i can screw it in. seems like a 24mm spindle

[caneye]

BikeInn (TradeInn) really did me over. Bought a GXP BB for $50, but just went to install it today, a few months later. They'd sent me some unusual BB that doesn't even have notches to screw it in! PT1SMXTR
The only notches are on the inside of the cups, behind the pressed in bearing. That'll learn me for using dodgy overseas sites.
Here's a picture of it (different colour/model) . I'm sure it's a big seller. NB No notches! Does anyone have a clue what this is for.
EDIT the bearings pop out..maybe i can screw it in. seems like a 24mm spindle

is for a press fit BB?

[stevenaaus]

No. The bearings pop out fairly easily and I screwed the cups in with a shimano Isis bb tool, before replacing the bearings. Very tight /deep thread though.

[Dave_rh]

Bought some NeoPro MTB shorts recently. I already own lots of their road kit and it's great.

I'm a size L and double checked my waist with a tape measure against their chart before I ordered.

The MTB shorts are a great design and seem high quality but... The sizing is crazy. They are just massive.

They are very loose to start and then, the fabric is a stretchy one which makes it worse. Even with the velcro waist tabs fully in, they are still falling off my waist.

I guess I'll see what return/exchange options are available, and update my progress in a future post.

If anyone is considering ordering these, I suggest going at least 1 or possibly 2 sizes smaller!

[g-boaf]

Not related to the sellers, but the courier company Aramex is absolutely hopeless.

[biker jk]

Not related to the sellers, but the courier company Aramex is absolutely hopeless.

Indeed they are. I've had them leave a parcel precariously perched on a wall in my front yard on two occasions.

[g-boaf]

Even Australia Post manages to deliver things reasonably well most of the time, it's like these guys don't even try, then hide behind corporate bureaucracy when called out on their shoddy ways.

[MichaelB]

Not related to the sellers, but the courier company Aramex is absolutely hopeless.

Much in line with Couriers Please ....

[Andy01]

Not related to the sellers, but the courier company Aramex is absolutely hopeless.

How they stay in business beats me - I can only guess that they offer cheap rates to eBay sellers etc. There are even worse than when they were FastWay Couriers, and that is saying something because FastWay was anything but fast. They are worse than the Jetstar or RyanAir of airlines.

Their tracking is completely useless - invariably the first "update" after "We have received your parcel" occurs shortly after the parcel has been delivered - why they even bother with tracking is beyond me because there really isn't any. The actual delivery is a complete lucky dip - one in ten arrives in almost record time, and most of the others just bumble about in the ether for a week or more.

I hate it when a seller gives me an Aramex tracking number.

[blizzard]

I bought some Silca chain wax pack and some YBN quick links from Zero Friction Cycling. Weirdly, if you buy just the Silca combo it's free shipping but add in the quick links and you had to pay shipping.

Anyway, it was dispatched next day (I ordered in the evening) via Auspost express and arrived the next business day. Pricing was about $15-$20 more than getting the same stuff shipped from Bikebug but I'm happy to pay a little extra seeing how much testing and info guides Adam produces. Would recommend.

[MichaelB]

I bought some Silca chain wax pack and some YBN quick links from Zero Friction Cycling. Weirdly, if you buy just the Silca combo it's free shipping but add in the quick links and you had to pay shipping.

Anyway, it was dispatched next day (I ordered in the evening) via Auspost express and arrived the next business day. Pricing was about $15-$20 more than getting the same stuff shipped from Bikebug but I'm happy to pay a little extra seeing how much testing and info guides Adam produces. Would recommend.

Another +1 to ZFC freely available data and service

[ningnangnong]

Purchased a Magene PES P505 spider-based power meter from the 'Magene Official Store' on Aliexpress a couple of months back. Installed it with the Ultegra chainrings I already had - very straightforward process, even for a completely useless incompetent mechanic like me.

Have only just got around to taking it for its first run - a 100km ride - and it has performed admirably.

Accuracy seems to be on par with the Giant Power Pro I've got on my other roadie.

Will be interesting to see how it goes as I ride it more, but first impressions are excellent, especially for the $450 I paid.

[Mr Purple]

Black Sheep. I officially give up, I don't care how good their clothes are.

They have sales very infrequently and I'm a subscriber so get notifications. Last sale I added a small Essentials bib into my cart, and they were sold out before I managed to process it.

Another sale today - officially started at 12:00, logged on at 12:01, checked out cart at 12:02. Sold out.

I'm sorry, that's absolute rubbish and bait advertising. Don't even bother if you don't have the stock to fulfill any orders. I'm not talking just one colour either - every bib, every colour, every size (except XXS) already sold out.

[nathg]

Agree with this. I was on there right as it started. No Medium size in any of their range of bibs. Ended up buying a jersey and gilet, which I didn’t need, but was cheap. Bought full price bibs and jersey from them last month. Will be interesting to check back stick in the next week to see if it’s been updated.

[blizzard]

Black Sheep. I officially give up, I don't care how good their clothes are.

They have sales very infrequently and I'm a subscriber so get notifications. Last sale I added a small Essentials bib into my cart, and they were sold out before I managed to process it.

Another sale today - officially started at 12:00, logged on at 12:01, checked out cart at 12:02. Sold out.

I'm sorry, that's absolute rubbish and bait advertising. Don't even bother if you don't have the stock to fulfill any orders. I'm not talking just one colour either - every bib, every colour, every size (except XXS) already sold out.

I had the same issue but only looked at the sale at lunch the next day. It is pretty common for these sales to only include the hard to sell sizes like xxs and XXL.

I find Wiggle far more scummy with sales, they will show the price of the cheapest size on the search page and then when you choose your the price jumps way up.

[Lukeyboy]

Black Sheep. I officially give up, I don't care how good their clothes are.

They have sales very infrequently and I'm a subscriber so get notifications. Last sale I added a small Essentials bib into my cart, and they were sold out before I managed to process it.

Another sale today - officially started at 12:00, logged on at 12:01, checked out cart at 12:02. Sold out.

I'm sorry, that's absolute rubbish and bait advertising. Don't even bother if you don't have the stock to fulfill any orders. I'm not talking just one colour either - every bib, every colour, every size (except XXS) already sold out.

Sorry. Already had my cart sorted before the sale and checked out just as it started

[scirocco]

Bought a few items from BikeInn. They have a whole heap of negative reviews on places like TrustPilot so I was a bit dubious, but everything turned up correctly, prices were good, and they had a couple if items that weren't available anywhere else. So I'm pretty happy.

Delivery was slow though; the order sat in a logistics centre in The Hague for about 10 days.

I think I would only buy from them if I knew that the item would be exactly what I needed. It's not somewhere that will hold you hand with regards to sizing or suitability.

[Jean]

Bought a few items from BikeInn. They have a whole heap of negative reviews on places like TrustPilot so I was a bit dubious, but everything turned up correctly, prices were good, and they had a couple if items that weren't available anywhere else. So I'm pretty happy.

Delivery was slow though; the order sat in a logistics centre in The Hague for about 10 days.

I think I would only buy from them if I knew that the item would be exactly what I needed. It's not somewhere that will hold you hand with regards to sizing or suitability.

I've bought from BikeInn a few times, and it's been fine, but I bought some ski gear through its sister SnowInn and tried to return part of the gear because it didn't fit my son. Aye carrumbah, what a (poor) experience. I won't go into the details, but the ski pants had a (slow) trip to some centre in Spain and were returned because the address didn't compute. Whether this was down to SnowInn or the Spanish postal system, I have no idea. Subsequent attempts to sort something out with their customer service came to nought.

I still have the pants here if anyone is interested.....and I'd have to be a bit desperate to buy anything from xxxInn again.

[Andy01]

I will never touch BikeInn again with a barge-pole.

I bought some Continental tyres there 3 years ago, and then added a couple of small things because the (costly) shipping was already "covered" by the tyres.

It took them over 2 weeks to tell me that the tyres were out of stock (in spite of their website still showing them as in stock up to that point and for a further 2 weeks while I argued with them), and that they were going to send the small items with the same shipping cost. I declined and asked to cancel the order, and that started 2-3 weeks of email war before they relented.

Pack of incompetent thieves

[familyguy]

Anyone doing a BikeInn or Bike24 order in the next week or so? Looking at a rim and spoke nipples and was just been emailed to inform me that the quoted postage was wrong and the price is now twice what it was, i.e. not worth doing. If I could source any of it locally, I would, but we appear to get no wheels here that aren't ready-made.

[warthog1]

I've used bikeinn once and ok but yeah heard a few dodgy experiences from others.
Mourning the loss of wiggle/c r c a bit personally. Very reliable they were.