Buying on the net

The only US on-line shops I deal with these days are Vechios (Peter Chisholm), Harris (Sheldon Brown) and Business Cycles (John Darcy). These three shops are really good people, and will work hard to get the obscure stuff that my addiction calls for, but aren't discounters.

For discounted mass-market stuff (Campy toys and tyres), I find the UK shops are great. My current faves are Parkers, Total Cycling (now that they use parcel force rather than DHL), and Deeside.

Cheers,

Suzy

"suzyj" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

The only US on-line shops I deal with these days are Vechios (Peter
Chisholm), Harris (Sheldon Brown) and Business Cycles (John Darcy).
These three shops are really good people, and will work hard to get
the obscure stuff that my addiction calls for, but aren't discounters.

The time I contacted Sheldon he didn't have what I wanted in stock so he
tried to sell me something else. I eventually found someone who wanted to
sell me what I wanted to buy.

Quoted message said:

For discounted mass-market stuff (Campy toys and tyres), I find the UK
shops are great. My current faves are Parkers, Total Cycling (now
that they use parcel force rather than DHL), and Deeside.

Don't you find postage from the UK to be a killer?

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excuse my ignorance, what's a BBB?

I assume you're not referring to the brand of bike parts.

I had similar problems with BikeSomeWhere. They said they'd shipped my new shoes (left the other pair on the car roof and drove off) and blamed FedEx when they didn't turn up. They were a nightmare to deal with by email. I emailed them 12 times and they replied 2. I finally contacted Amazon (who I placed the order with) and they told me that BikeSomeWhere didn't have the items in stock and they would credit my account (but not the foreign currency transaction fee or loss on the exchange rate).

I HAVE to shop online 'cos I don't have a LBS within 5000km and I've had mostly good service. I try and stick to a few trusted vendors like Excelsports, REI, PricePoint (very helpful when they sent the wrong colour jersey - let me keep it and sent me the correct one for shipping cost only).

I have to say that I've only had problems this year too. And shipping is getting prohibitively expensive.

sinus said:

excuse my ignorance, what's a BBB?

I assume you're not referring to the brand of bike parts.

Better Business Bureau?

Cheers,
Brad

You don't have a bike shop within 5000km?? Where do you live, Siberia?

I assume that was a typo?

Sasha

Quoted message said:

I HAVE to shop online 'cos I don't have a LBS within 5000km and I've
had mostly good service. I try and stick to a few trusted vendors like
Excelsports, REI, PricePoint (very helpful when they sent the wrong
colour jersey - let me keep it and sent me the correct one for shipping
cost only).

I have to say that I've only had problems this year too. And shipping
is getting prohibitively expensive.

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"Brad Hubbard" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

sinus said:

excuse my ignorance, what's a BBB?

I assume you're not referring to the brand of bike parts.

Better Business Bureau?

Yes. Unfortunately, some vendors think answering legitimate customer
queries is an optional extra. Siccing the BBB onto them can be a salutary
reminder that they can't treat me like [censored] just because I'm halfway around
the world.

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DRS said:

The time I contacted Sheldon he didn't have what I wanted in stock so he
tried to sell me something else. I eventually found someone who wanted to
sell me what I wanted to buy.

I too wanted to sell you what you wanted to buy. Unfortunately,
Avocet had been unable to fill our long-standing order for those
tyres. We had been waiting for quite a few weeks for them, and had no
idea when they would arrive from Korea.

Avocet doesn't go through distributors, they are the only wholesale
source for their products. When they are out of stock, there is no
alternative source.

I wanted to solve your problem, so I suggested an alternative tyre
that I like a lot, and use myself.

This tyre is US$5.00 _less_ expensive than the Avocet model you were
asking for.

I didn't do this because I'm a greedy bait-and-switch artist, but
because I'm a cyclist like you and wanted to help you with your
problem.

Sheldon "Bald Is Good" Brown
Newtonville, Massachusetts, USA
+---------------------------------------------+
| If your bike has drop handlebars, but you |
| rarely or never ride on the drops, it's a |
| sure sign that your bike is not properly |
| fitted or is not properly adjusted! |
| See: http://sheldonbrown.com/handsup |
+---------------------------------------------+
Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041
http://harriscyclery.com
Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com

suzyj said:

The only US on-line shops I deal with these days are Vechios (Peter
Chisholm), Harris (Sheldon Brown) and Business Cycles (John Darcy).
These three shops are really good people, and will work hard to get
the obscure stuff that my addiction calls for, but aren't discounters.

I've had very good service from aebike.com and lumicycle.co.uk.

[quote="DRS"]My current nightmare is with Performance. A while back I wanted to buy some
stuff from Nashbar but didn't because they don't use USPS and that's a deal
killer because of the outrageous courier costs of UPS and FedEx. I read
somewhere that Nashbar and Performance were owned by the same people or
organisation or whatever, so I asked Performance if they used USPS for
international orders and they said yes. No worries. I ordered some stuff.
But the order confirmation email said ground shipping, which wasn't right
according to my understanding, so I went to Performance's web site to try to
track my order status before checking with them, only the system couldn't
find my order. I duly fired off an email to customer service saying there
was a problem with the system not finding my order and would they please
check its shipping method.

After much delay it turns out the [censored] cancelled my order. Only they
didn't have the decency to tell me. If I hadn't queried them I'd still be
blissfully waiting for my package and that's just not right.

It turns out they can't automatically verify my credit card billing address
with my bank. They didn't alert me to this problem. They didn't offer to
work with me to resolve it. No, they just cancelled the order and left me
hanging. The [censored].

Now they say if I want I can order again but I have to pay with an
international money order drawn in US funds. That costs me more and I'm not
ordering from them for the privilege of paying more. It's not the only
option either. There is an alternative, one I've had to use once before,
which is to fax a photocopy of my credit card to them. It's an unduly
paranoid pain in the [censored] but it's doable. I will not use a money order.
Stuff them. I have a perfectly good credit card issued by the second
biggest bank in Australia and apart from anything else I'm not giving up the
protection it offers me. When it comes to security it's not all about them.


************
I am in Perth and buy a few things from Performance (and from my local bike shop and Probikekit in the UK and .........). I had the same poor service from Performance due to being an international customer (but they did email to let me know that they had cancelled the order). I thought I would be fine as I used a card with 'American' in it. No way! Performance couldn't confirm my identity so cancelled the order. However, I have found a way to short circuit the international cancellation problem - it's not particularly difficult but it does have a couple of steps.

1. get the merchant enquiries phone number from your card provider. The Aussie number is fine, Performance seem to be happy to ring internationally, but you have to give them the number with the international prefix etc as they seem to be incapable of working it out

2. on the internet order form in the comments box I type "confirm address with Amex Australia 61292718678" (this is the real Amex number if that is useful)

3. THEN, when they send an email confirmation of the order, I email back quoting the order number and reiterating my advice to phone the card provider with provider details etc.

This has worked for 3 orders so far. However I did have some recent 'discussions' with them about accepting orders for particular items then not supplying them (especially while the website showed them as being in stock at all the relevant times). The answer was that they were in stock when the item was put on the website but that it might not be when it came time to fill the order. That did not explain why they accepted orders when there was no stock, but the discussion was pretty laboured and I did not think there would be much value in starting a discussion about real time inventory systems.

Also I have found the shippling charge and method on the order confirmation email is not the 'actual'. It is only an 'estimate'. You should get an email from them giving you 2 options to choose from - that is when you find out the real charge and that is when you choose.

SteveA

"Andrew Reddaway" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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[...]

Quoted message said:

I've had very good service from aebike.com and lumicycle.co.uk.

Right now I've got my hopes pinned on AEBike. They've got what I wanted
except obviously the Performance-brand item but that's OK, it's the least
important. I ordered online on Saturday and just checked my credit card
balance. Oh-oh, it hadn't changed. Eek! So, back I went to the AEBike
site to see how to contact them and it's a good thing I did too. Their shop
"...is closed on Mondays during the off-season of September through
February." IOW, nobody will process my order for at least another two
hours.

Geez, this business is making me paranoid.

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"SteveA" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message news:[email hidden]

[..]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I am in Perth and buy a few things from Performance (and from my
local bike shop and Probikekit in the UK and .........). I had the
same poor service from Performance due to being an international
customer (but they did email to let me know that they had cancelled
the order). I thought I would be fine as I used a card with
'American' in it. No way! Performance couldn't confirm my identity
so cancelled the order. However, I have found a way to short circuit
the international cancellation problem - it's not particularly
difficult but it does have a couple of steps.

1. get the merchant enquiries phone number from your card provider.
The Aussie number is fine, Performance seem to be happy to ring
internationally, but you have to give them the number with the
international prefix etc as they seem to be incapable of working it
out

Heh. I just received an email from Performance requesting a number for the
issuing bank, which in this case is the CBA. Unfortunately I can't find the
merchant enquiry number on their web site. If anyone knows it it'll save me
some time, otherwise I'll have to try to get it from the bank myself.

In the meantime I got a confirmation email that the CBA has received my
complaint. It says I can expect "a response" within 4 days. I wonder what
their excuse will be and how much they'll put their fees up for not
providing a necessary service yet again?

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DRS said:

In the meantime I got a confirmation email that the CBA has received my
complaint. It says I can expect "a response" within 4 days. I wonder what
their excuse will be and how much they'll put their fees up for not
providing a necessary service yet again?

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Sitting back here, having a bit of a chuckle, and notice with surprised interest that Capt. Bike drops in for a chat. You know something's seriously wrong when Mr Brown attempts to right the world on it's axis . . . :roll eyes: But he does have some interesting stuff you can't get anywhere else, such as granite saddles . . .

Yes, it's a wonderful new toy, this Internet whosamajiggy, but does it help you to ride your bike? No. Does it alert you to incompatibilities, or attempt to use a bit of ingenuity and face-to-face persuasion to get things resolved? No. Does it rely on mountains of regulations, protocols, lack of discrepancies, things out of your control and uncaring blandness wrung from the dripping brows of transnational financial serfs chained to their desktop boxes, who might as well be selling toasters or fertiliser for all the interest and aptitude they bring to your treasured cycling purchases? Well, shortly, yes.

Sitting here reading this thread, my feelings segue to pity, or sorrow, or . . . (other undefinable emotion), but mostly just annoyance, that once again, the means is running over and road-killing the ends.

It sounds, from what I'm reading, that y'all have a pathological hatred of bike shops, or bike shop employees (and I'm (sob) hurt 🙁 ), that you trust someone on the other side of the world implicitly, and the people you can actually TALK to not at all - so the pursuit comes down to the acquisition of objects, and not what they're for, or using the objects (even in the action and process of researching/choosing/budgeting for/buying them) in a pleasurable and interesting way. WHY? WHY can't you make the locally available product (whether mid or high range, last year's model or this years, black or silver) work as well as the thing you lust after on the other side of the world, then get all petty and peevish when the magic piece of plastic fails to deliver? (that indefinable emotion again). Sheesh. What a load of consumers.

M " go buy a Volvo, you closet volvo-driver control freaks" H

mfhor said:

It sounds, from what I'm reading, that y'all have a pathological hatred
of bike shops, or bike shop employees (and I'm (sob) hurt 🙁 ), that you
trust someone on the other side of the world implicitly, and the people
you can actually TALK to not at all

For me it is a matter of trust. It took me years to find an honest
motorbike mechanic and now he's the only one I will ever use. Same thing
would apply to an LBS if I could find one where I got consistently good
advice. But it seems to be too dependent on who's there on the day. I
certainly don't trust Internet providers to give good advice. But if
I've got an LBS I don't trust and an Internet provider I don't trust I'm
going with whoever has what I want at the cheapest price.

If I absolutely have to have advice or fitting that's a different
matter, the LBS always wins out, but I might go to a couple of LBS's if
I'm not convinced I'm getting the right advice (and I do buy from them,
not use their advice to buy from someone else who is cheaper).

It's unfortunate, but it only takes one piece of bad advice to turn you
off an LBS.

DaveB

DRS said:

Right now I've got my hopes pinned on AEBike. They've got what I wanted

I had good experience. Fantastic range - lots I couldn't get here.
The only thing was that the postmark showed it took them a week to
actually post the order. So be a little patient.
From Kalamazoo to Aus, its a long way down the track :-)

mfhor said:

It sounds, from what I'm reading, that y'all have a pathological hatred
of bike shops, or bike shop employees (and I'm (sob) hurt 🙁 ), that you
trust someone on the other side of the world implicitly, and the people
you can actually TALK to not at all -

But it IS a real bike shop, and you CAN talk to them. The world is
getting smaller.

quote='Mike'mfhor said:

It sounds, from what I'm reading, that y'all have a pathological hatred
of bike shops, or bike shop employees (and I'm (sob) hurt 🙁 ), that you
trust someone on the other side of the world implicitly, and the people
you can actually TALK to not at all -

But it IS a real bike shop, and you CAN talk to them. The world is
getting smaller.[/QUOTE]
***
I buy from the bike shops via the internet but I also buy much more from my LBS. I don't go to my LBS, try something for size, and then buy it somewhere else - that would be just plain rude. I know and trust (and maybe even LOVE) my LBS mechanic and the guy who owns the store. When something new is about to come onto the market, the LBS is the first port of call. BUT there are some things which I go to the net for - I am a big bloke and it is very hard to get bike clothing that fits. US clothing comes in sizes to fit big buggers like me. And then sometimes only the net can satisfy that carbon fibre and titanium fetish without mortgaging the children.

I'm about to restore an old treadly, I've scoured my LBS (I have access to the old/spare parts bins) and I can't get the bits I need - so its off on the net I go.

And sometimes it is the bloody-minded challenge of actually getting the internet bike store to give you what you want (Performance usually provides this challenge)

And the aim of all this? To get out on the bikes and ride!

So, its raingear on for Perth this morning, and I'm off to pedal to the day job.

SteveA

mfhor said:

It sounds, from what I'm reading, that y'all have a pathological
hatred of bike shops, or bike shop employees (and I'm (sob) hurt 🙁 ),
that you trust someone on the other side of the world implicitly, and
the people you can actually TALK to not at all - so the pursuit comes
down to the acquisition of objects, and not what they're for, or using
the objects (even in the action and process of
researching/choosing/budgeting for/buying them) in a pleasurable and
interesting way.

I think for me it's about value. If the local bike shops (and yes, I have bought a significant amount of stuff from my local bike shops over the years) add value to my purchase, whether by having the item I want when I want it, or else by offering advice, or having a range of items that I can look at in person and choose from, then I'll buy locally.

However it's not often the case (especially more recently) that a local shop will have what I want. I don't particularly care for Shimano mountain bike parts, so when I do buy locally, it invariably means I don't get to see what I'm buying, have to wait for it to arrive, and then pay a premium for the "local" service. Not to mention all to often being treated like an idiot by some pimply teenage kid, simply because of my gender.

At least buying on the net in such circumstances, I get to save a little money, and I find (gross generalisation here) that the advice I get from online shops, like Sheldon, Peter, and John, is much better than the advice that I'd get from the LBS.

The ultimate example of this sort of thing is framebuilding stuff. Once (quite a few years ago) I rang the local agents for Reynolds tubing, to ask if they could sent me a catalogue, so that I could buy some frame tubes through them. They refused my request, saying that they only deal with professional framebuilders. I gave up on the idea of building a bike frame then, and it was only much more recently (only after finding the Ceeway site on the web) that my interest was rekindled. My attitude now is that if the local guy can't (or won't) give me what I want, then stuff them, it's a big world, and there's always someone who can.

Regards,

Suzy

"mfhor" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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[...]

Quoted message said:

Sitting here reading this thread, my feelings segue to pity, or
sorrow, or . . . (other undefinable emotion), but mostly just
annoyance, that once again, the means is running over and
road-killing the ends.

You're being ridiculous again.

Quoted message said:

It sounds, from what I'm reading, that y'all have a pathological
hatred of bike shops, or bike shop employees

Not at all. I just hate being stuffed around. And since I'm being stuffed
around by bike shops it's a legitimate topic of discussion in here. You
don't like it, don't read it.

Quoted message said:

(and I'm (sob) hurt 🙁
), that you trust someone on the other side of the world implicitly,
and the people you can actually TALK to not at all - so the pursuit
comes down to the acquisition of objects, and not what they're for,
or using the objects (even in the action and process of
researching/choosing/budgeting for/buying them) in a pleasurable and
interesting way. WHY?

I'm not after information, I'm after specific items no Australian vendor
with an online presence is making available (there was only one Performance
brand item in my list). Do you carry what I want? I have no idea. And
even if I was able to buy them here there would be no "pleasurable and
interesting" interaction between myself and the merchant, it'd take me just
long enough to walk in, grab what I wanted, pay for them and leave. There's
no added value here, just a commodity transaction.

Quoted message said:

WHY can't you make the locally available
product (whether mid or high range, last year's model or this years,
black or silver) work as well as the thing you lust after on the
other side of the world, then get all petty and peevish when the
magic piece of plastic fails to deliver? (that indefinable emotion
again).

Is there a local alternative to the "Winwood Instep Pedal Insert--Shimano
SPD"? I don't think so. If there is then it's a well kept secret and I'm
not interested in stuffing around.

Quoted message said:

Sheesh. What a load of consumers.

Welcome to John Howard's globalised free trade agreement Australia.

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