Canyon Bikes,12 days of selling stuff they can not fulfill

Canyon Fail!! Back to old tricks or did it stop?

I bought Mavic pro carbon sl wheels and a cassette on Monday from Canyon’s 12 days of Christmas sale. I completed the transaction and checked out and entered card details. Great I thought, Merry Christmas to me. I am recovering from surgery to my back and not able to ride at present, so it was a great pick me up and something to look forward to.

The reduction in the sale price was good, RRP now of said wheels is about £1600 and I paid just over £800 for wheels and a cassette. This is a big purchase for me and not something I take lightly. Looking around on tinternet, they are fairly new model I wasn’t going to find anywhere else at this time at that price. I can hear my dad whispering as I type…. ‘Son, it it is too good to be true… it normally is…’  How apt. Was this a sale or PR? I can only wonder.

Today (Thursday) I received an email to say they would deliver the cassette, yes just the cassette. So naturally a little worried they had messed up, it has been known by Canyon before i tried to get in touch about the omission of the wheels from the order.

So after a couple of hours trying on live chat, which was engaged, i found a UK phone number and called.

So I ask why there is no mention to the ordered wheels on my delivery email, and they tell me they are sorry but they have oversold the wheels and I was one of many who would not be receiving them.  The offer was sold out quite quickly and their systems continued to accept orders when they were not in a position to fulfill these orders. They tell me they this was not just on my type of wheels but others. (I have since learnt it wasn’t just today but on previous days!!) Obviously, this is not something that sits very comfortably with me and am sure it won’t with others, am I correct?It’s a bit like the airlines selling more seats than they have on the plane. Is this the level of customer service Canyon are aiming for?

I ask why it is 4 days later and no contact has been made by Canyon to me, it is me who has flagged the issue up and contacted Canyon? In all likelihood they knew about the issue days ago, soon after the orders were accepted (I have recently learnt the issue happened on previous days promotions) . The cynic in me asks was this a PR stunt to attract attention to the brand, cause a little Christmas stir with any bad comments they could delete and block from their memory? I will ask Canyon how many they sold and how many orders they plan to ship?

I posed the question that we have a contract and they are obliged to fulfill my order, ie they offered to sell and i agreed to buy? They say not, i am not an expert on retail law nor do i intend on becoming. They tell me it is contractually sound, I beg to differ. I am told until I recieve confirmation email and they have taken payment there is no contract!! I did recieve an email saying my order was accepted!!

Thank you for ordering with Canyon! Your order will be processed as soon as possible.

You will receive an email from us in due course containing all the information regarding your order and payment procedures.

Yours,
The Canyon Crew

However legal contract or not, morally and ethically this is clearly wrong. Both Canyon’s representatives i spoke to agreed it was very poor from them.

There is no reason this should happen and if your systems are not good enough to deal with orders you should not be making theses offers in my opinion. Many retail sites run shopping carts and have an inventory of stock. These 2 are linked (take note Canyon), if someone puts an item in the cart, it is removed from the inventory so it can not be bought.

Once number of items sold or in cart = inventory it is therefore sold out and no further ‘add to cart’ actions can take place. If that is not easy enough to code on a website, how about …

Do not chekout anymore orders when, number of orders = number of items we have in stock

So you can not sell more than you have? It is common. Many of us are used to seeing it will remain in your cart for X mins or similar.

I am told that Canyons sytems only update every 15mins, am not sure what updates in 15mins, stock levels?

So you ask yourself, come on, its a little mistake, if it was a one off possibly. This has happened near the start of the promotion on different products, so not only were they aware of it they continued to let it happen further down the line knowing full well this was going to reoccur and affect other customers. That’s not nice Canyon to me or anyone else.

I understand from another Canyon customer who I contacted before his posts were removed from the Canyon’s Facebook page that he had a similar scenario. He had ordered a product and low and behold it was sold out but they still accepted his order. However, I must add after he made a ‘fuss’ they were kind enough to place his order on a back order so when they got further stock they may supply him.

When I pushed a little and asked for similar treatment (without knowing so at the time ) I was told that Canyon have no further plans at present to order Mavic wheels of similarities to my order. I specifically asked about Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbone SL C and Mavic Kysirium Pro Carbone SL C. I will be watching if they do get stock in, in the next few months. I then suggested that they order another pair from Mavic if they have none as am i am sure Mavic have a few knocking around. ‘Phoarrrr, that’s not possible or how we work am afraid.’

I am upset and disappointed with the contempt my order has been dealt with. It is little wonder Canyon’s reputation has been affected so negatively if this is what they consider acceptable. The majority of people I know like the look of Canyon bikes but wouldn’t want to deal with the company or trust them. I am afraid I am now +1 of those.

I will be asking Canyon to comment in due course.

UPDATE: 16.12.16

I have formally asked for an official response to a number of questions which i have emailed.

I have asked for the complaints procedure again as my last request was deleted from their Facebook page.

I have also asked for the CEO’s email address so i can make him aware of how this promotion has been operated.

 

 


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