Wiggle reportedly heading towards administration due to parent company funding woes

Cyclists!  Survive the apocalypse in comfort by mounting a chainsaw to the front of your ride!

Knights of the road!

And from Wiggle half an hour later!

And Vitus bicycles. Probably they will be sold off. Whether as going concerns, retaining some of the staff that made their stuff good, or as brands to be slapped on someone else's products, is another matter. Vitus already went through the latter process, but it's bicycles have been getting pretty good lately.

ubercurmudgeon wrote:

And Vitus bicycles. Probably they will be sold off. Whether as going concerns, retaining some of the staff that made their stuff good, or as brands to be slapped on someone else's products, is another matter. Vitus already went through the latter process, but it's bicycles have been getting pretty good lately.

There's a Vitus e-bike in the shed - a very good tourer, graveller and winter bike with the removable Fazua motor/battery so an empty thing (or one filled with cake) can be put in the bike instead of the motor/battery to make it an ordinary (not an Ordinary) bicycle.

So am I bovvered if Wiggle goes phut, along with the supply of Vitus bits? Slightly, although it's only really the gear hanger that might be a Vitus-only part (I've got a spare) with everything else but the frame the commonly-found stuff from Shimano et al. Standard fittings everywhere on it apart from the motor/gearbox.

Looking back on all the bikes I've owned, I've never taken any of them back to the seller for a fix. Bikes aren't really like cars, needing all sorts of dedicated brand-specific tooling and knowledge to keep going. It is slowly changing, mind, with peculiar shaped seat posts and stems or other parts that are far from standard. I'll be doing my best never to buy such a bicycle.

However, e-bikes in general seem rather vulnerable to going down the maintence path of cars. If Fazua were to disappear for example (Porsche, who own it now, might drop Fazua systems in favour of a new! improved! Porsche motor) my Vitus e-bike might prove difficult to keep e .... although the design at least means I can continue using it as a perfectly fine unpowered bike. Well .... apart from if the BB gearbox goes ..... . Fazua say its tested for a 250,000 km life, though.  I can hope. 

It's likely to follow the Sports Direct model of 'own-brands' where the retailer sells lots of products apparently from lots of different brands. However, when you look a bit deeper you find that all these brands are owned by Sports Direct and the quality is uniformly terrible

henryb wrote:

It's likely to follow the Sports Direct model of 'own-brands' where the retailer sells lots of products apparently from lots of different brands. However, when you look a bit deeper you find that all these brands are owned by Sports Direct and the quality is uniformly terrible

I think they're referred to as zombie brands.  SD simply bought the brand name.

If brands like dhb are the strongest part, surely a new buyer would want to keep those going, one way or another?

Depending on how your friend paid for the bike. I would take all the pictures of the cracked frame, invoices and printouts of all communications between the customer and Wiggle to the bank and inform them of the matter.

The bank will likely initiate a chargeback depending on how long wiggle have taken to respond and since the business its going to the dogs its highly likely that a chargeback would be the only option of getting the money back.

Thx for your reply. Will pass that on. Is it realistic to think that if they get bought out then the new owner will somehow need to process warranty claims or return bikes which are being processed?

By law. So long as wiggle is operating (regardless of who owns them) warranty should be honored if you are within the warranty period. If they dont then it would leave the door open for them to get taken to court. Be it a small claims court or class action lawsuit.

I'm not convinced this is always true. It might be true if there is a "rescue deal" in which the company itself continues to operate under new ownership.

However, often only the brand/IP rights are bought, in which case the company subsequently operating as "Wiggle" would be legally an entirely separate entity, with no obligations to customers of the previous company, despite trading under the same brand name.

Read the item yesterday afternoon. Pragmatically placed an order & saw it was dispatched in the evening. I collected it this morning (without paying for next-day delivery). Box contained Harribo. I assume order volume was down from normal. Not sure I risk an order now.

They had £79 million in stock on the last filed accounts but that included hotlines and wiggle as well as chain reaction. 

"Black Friday" sale on today