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Just had a butchers at both new sites on my phone, I'm not using the wiggle one again, god it's awful, both are a scrolling nightmare, it's gonna take ages to browse, I put it on desktop version, yep still awful, hate it, just hate it, WTF were they thinking, CRC site was so user friendly now it's as terrible as most others.
Looks like they've lost all the useful filters in search, reviews, and Q&As
Well the MOST useful filter was the IN STOCK ONLY one and it's gone. What a screw-up that is. I haven't got the patience to click through stuff only too find it's out of damn stock. Bag of shit
yeah it's awful. Worst thing is you can't see what item is in stock until you click through, and so much of it is out of stock.
Another here agreeing it’s awful! Half the menus don’t work, impossible to find things and when you do they’re out of stock. Oh dear… As said, it’s gone from a very user friendly site to a mess…
Worst bike related thing to happen since press fit BB, Covid, Brexit, cost of living crisis now this, the 2020's can FRO. 😖😡🤬🤬🤬, Only joking, well, half joking.😉
So much for my theory. They're even more identical!
And equally unusable. Hmmmmm, spectacular backwards step so far.
What an absolute pile of dogshit.
That's really the best I can say.
CRC was awful immediately after their last upgrade too, they took a while to iron it all out.
Purchased a bike 3 days ago along with other bits and the order has now gone from my history. I never had any emails warning me about this. Also noticed my wiggle+ free delivery has gone from my account, it has 11 months left.
What a f*@k up.
sort by discount has gone as well
who the **** signed this off?
They have also cut their cashback offer via top cashback and Quidco right down. Meanwhile Merlin are offering 10% and actually have stock...
And I still don't get the point of having two shops selling the same stuff. Why not just merge the two brands
As a near on 20 year customer for CRC / Wiggle they lost me as a customer 12 months ago when Evri became their delivery method, this new website mess just gives me another reason to shop elsewhere. CRC really does need to shape up, much better competition out there these days.
I have tried to place an order this morning and despite wiggle+ showing as still on my account, it keeps telling me I need to spend more to qualify. Was trying to order something yesterday and couldn't get on the site for most of the day (got lot's of emails about the order history, but nothing saying they were going to go down for the day).
If only someone else offered a paid for next day delivery service (that's the main reason I use them)
I know nobody likes change, but they really have made an arse of that. Horrible user experience trying to browse the site - certainly nowhere near as easy to browse the various options quickly as before.
The loss of the 'in stock' filter is one of the worst parts - I hate any sort of online shop that claims to have an item instock (Winstanleys...) but after you've placed it you get the dreaded email the next day.
Has anyone noticed ANY upside of the new sites? I work in webdev (I develop/run rootsandrain.com) and these new CRC & Wiggle sites appears to be worse in EVERY way to me. Not being able to filter by anything non-standard - only "size" & "colour" for every product. WTF. Oh yes, I'd love to click into 75 different handlebars to see what rises they're available in.
The site they had before really was actually GOOD. Impressively good in some regards. I was excited to see what was going to replace it... but now I'll go somewhere else for a chainring because they can't show me what 34t 104 BCD rings they have in stock. And unless they fix it I think that'll be true for most purchases I make. The filters were KEY.
It honestly just makes me... sad. Like someone else said, how the hell has someone signed this off??
RIP old lovely usable CRC. 😢
At least one thing is working well: today I needed to return some riding pants that didn't fit which were ordered from CRC & delivered last week. In the returns portal I entered the order number and my postcode, and the entire order came up with a decent UI allowing me to select which items I wanted to return.
Downhiller +1
I guess they might be slowly adding features but this seems massively stripped down and a poor user experience. Really weird.
I can't imagine the full days outage was planned, especially as the sites seemed to fall and start at differing times.
If I had to guess I'd say at least some of the issues with the crappy filters etc are a symptom of the issues & they'll have brought up a bare bones version which lets them keep trading over the next few days whilst they find the gremlins that brought the whole lot down and slowly roll out more functionality.
Given how big a job they are doing by the looks of things, I expect they have delivered a minimal viable product in order to be offline for the minimum amount of time possible. They will slowly reintroduce the functionality over time I am sure once they have ensured the really important bits have been done.
dhague
At least one thing is working well: today I needed to return some riding pants that didn’t fit which were ordered from CRC & delivered last week. In the returns portal I entered the order number and my postcode, and the entire order came up with a decent UI allowing me to select which items I wanted to return.
CRC's customer service has always been very good, whatever about website difficulties. Always been good to deal with.
I whinged in the direction of their facebook chat and just got this response, which agrees with TheGingerOne's suggestion.
Hey, thanks for your message and feedback.
I am sorry these are not currently available for you. I can confirm that all previous filters will be coming back slowly. I'm afraid these could not be added for the new site going live. Please keep an eye on the site for these being added back.
I am sorry for any disappointment caused.
🤞🤞🤞
The lack of filters was exactly the same last time too, they came back over time.
Charging for frame delivery too now 🙁 19.99
How the hell can the filters not be turned "on"?
Not a dev of any sort but surely that's why you have a test environment to play about in then when it's ready you just upload?
Not being able to filter by anything non-standard – only “size” & “colour” for every product. WTF. Oh yes, I’d love to click into 75 different handlebars to see what rises they’re available in.
The site they had before really was actually GOOD. Impressively good in some regards. I was excited to see what was going to replace it… but now I’ll go somewhere else for a chainring because they can’t show me what 34t 104 BCD rings they have in stock. And unless they fix it I think that’ll be true for most purchases I make. The filters were KEY.
It honestly just makes me… sad. Like someone else said, how the hell has someone signed this off??
RIP old lovely usable CRC. 😢
See also eBay (if you remember that far back).
How the hell can the filters not be turned “on”?
All it takes is one entry across tens of thousands of products, probably over multiple physical sites and legacy systems, to screw everything.
[one of] The problem with working with live data is you can only simulate and test out of date info.
If someone in goods in books in 34t instead of 34t chain rings two minutes before switch over and you've not tested that, you've not found and solved the issue & maybe the whole thing falls over.
Better to turn it off and test it thoroughly once you've migrated if it's not business critical (which a customer facing in stock filter isn't, it's just a nice to have)
I expect they have delivered a minimal viable product
If the product loses you business it is not viable. I'd would expect the replacement site to at least have feature parity. I've seen this before and it usually arises from a clash between marketing working to a fixed launch date and software approaching it in a more "Agile", incremental way.
I was looking at handlebars on my phone. Decided to order on my iPad, typed in the exact handlebars but they couldn't find them.
Then delivery is may 3rd even though I'm wiggle plus.
Flouncing off to a different company.
Rubbish.
joeyr
Free Member
New logo for Wiggle.. just looks like a standard Dafont script type font to me, prefer the old one?
Makes me think of a cheap Chinese clothing emporium rather than a bike/running/outdoor shop
They must have had a very good reason to do this to themselves.
Pffft, I guess it’s just one bod on their lunch swapping it all over. After all
it’s trivial to map fields between systems and do an export/import operation.
Couldn't they have just done a macro in MacroMania to cut and paste between the two spreadsheets?
Makes me think of a cheap Chinese clothing emporium
It does look like a classic "is it safe to buy from this site?" red flag.
Have I forgotten my log in details or are possible signing up new accounts?
Couldn’t they have just done a macro in MacroMania to cut and paste between the two spreadsheets?
Not sure it would work with lotus 1 2 3 though.
spooky_b329
Full Member
Have I forgotten my log in details or are possible signing up new accounts?
Unclear, trying to do anything at all on the site was borked for me 15mins ago (desktop and app)
Doesn't work on older versions of Safari so we've had to put Opera on Mrs Slow's elderly MacBook. Does look awful though. As for missing filters being added later I don't understand why you would release something that is incomplete. Oh I forgot, I worked in IT and it happens all the time!
I'd be very interested to know who did this 'upgrade' for them. Given that the web interface is the core of their business, rolling out a 'minimum viable product' is just going to lose them customers.
Mrs H1ghland3r does this kind of business system's transformation for a living for huge multinational companies and the idea that you can't transition data to a new system, or that you can't build a fully complete system in test and cut over to a feature complete new system all at once is just plain nonsense. Companies do it all the time for critical systems like global logistics, scheduling and HR (employees tend to start complaining rather a lot if they don't get paid and telling them "that feature will be rolled out in the coming weeks/months" doesn't go down well unsurprisingly!!)
This revamp comes across as having been done very much on the cheap, both in the backend systems and the front-end (which is awful, Wiggle looks like it's been hacked and replaced with a fake site).
None of that even address the issue that in browsing the site for around 10 minutes, I couldn't find a single listed item that was actually in stock.! They must be losing customers hand over fist right now.
If the backend is completely new and the catalogue a completely different data structure then keeping both systems aligned to allow a seamless cut-over would be tricky.
Oh my! I'd wondered if it was just me questioning exactly what the **** was going on then found this thread. For years I've used CRC to search (as that worked) and then Wiggle to buy (for the free/£10 a year delivery thing) but this search implemetation is batshit: Not only the omission of 'in stock' filter but the results too, for eg why is https://www.wiggle.com/search?query=oval returning 90% of what it is?
Fun fact: Our garden used to back onto the considerably larger CEO of Wiggle's when they did the whole CRC merger and Bike24 acquisition thing. He used to ride about in full Team Sky kit on a Sky replica Pinarello.
If the backend is completely new and the catalogue a completely different data structure then keeping both systems aligned to allow a seamless cut-over would be tricky.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be argumentative, but that's just plain wrong. It would take more time and cost more money, but companies do it all the time. Actually, to be more accurate, they have it done all the time, usually by an external business consultancy.
Old to completely new is probably easier than 3x old to 1x old
If the backend is completely new and the catalogue a completely different data structure then keeping both systems aligned to allow a seamless cut-over would be tricky.
Yes it is, but that why they pay the IT people the big bucks, they aren't the first and won't be the last to do this. If you really need it that's why you do migrations etc overnight to allow for a 'final' sync.
Old wishlists seem to have disappeared too, which is annoying as I had a pair of shorts in there to buy that I can't find in the new clusterf.
If the backend is completely new and the catalogue a completely different data structure then keeping both systems aligned to allow a seamless cut-over would be tricky.
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be argumentative, but that’s just plain wrong. It would take more time and cost more money, but companies do it all the time. Actually, to be more accurate, they have it done all the time, usually by an external business consultancy.
@H1ghland3r, note I didn't say impossible and as @branes said get the right people to do it..... I'm a software engineer, tricky stuff like that is my day to day. But as you rightly say too, it would take more time and cost
He used to ride about in full Team Sky kit on a Sky replica Pinarello.
Let's be fair, he's not the only one.
or that you can’t build a fully complete system in test and cut over to a feature complete new system all at once is just plain nonsense
No one is saying it is impossible just that it is hard and expensive to do well unless you are working with data which has a, mostly, standardised format across providers.
employees tend to start complaining rather a lot if they don’t get paid and telling them
Guess what though it does happen. Note though what people were commenting about was the conversion of historical data as opposed to ongoing. One you really need to spend time getting right but some discontinued data you may well not bother with.
Indeed you may take it as an opportunity to tidy up.
If you really need it that’s why you do migrations etc overnight to allow for a ‘final’ sync.
Depends how much data you need to shift. Overnight can be tricky.
TSB is a great example of how to screw it up which was back in the headlines recently since the CIO got hit with a nice fine due to it.
A bit of info here https://bikebiz.com/wiggle-undergoes-rebrand-with-new-look-new-logo-and-new-energy-revealed/ to answer some of your questions and hopefully untangle some of your twisted knickers.
Had a play around with the CRC site this evening. An awful lot of search options gone, so seems a basic release to get it working. Significantly more quick and responsive than the old site though which is impressive and that terrible Email Sign Up pop up has gone. Obviously cant use it without the missing search functions sadly. Oh yeah and prices have gone up.
Cant have more than 30 items in a basket now, so cant do the old increase basket qty to see total quantity in stock to see if prices will come down more.
@Thegingerone are you involved in this in anyway?
@Andy I'm not, but I do know what they are doing to a degree. I also work in I.T. so have an appreciation of how big a job, and how complicated it is.
I am not going to say any more on what they are doing as it is not my place to.
Fair enough. I was a PM in retail before I retired, I did a few of similar size, maybe bigger, so I agree with you on complexity & size of challenge. In addition to that any main site outage of more than a few minutes, let alone 24 hours was a hanging offence which never happened in the 25 years I worked in my role. The modern way seems to be much more acceptable of outage as a commercial decision. Maybe not such a bad thing and they must have had very high sales during their FLASH SALE to compensate.
Either that or some poor sods are getting hellish grief. Either way as I said earlier in this thread I hope the team doing this are being looked after.
Some of the screen responses are lightening though and the link between item page and basket is so much smoother.
On prices. I was looking at a Fox 34 Perf fork for £419 before the change. Thats now £764. Looks to me like the whole discounting component (pricing & search) hasn't gone live.
I'd just be happy if they stopped listing shit they haven't sold for several years. Barring that box of Z4s they found behind the sofa nothing has ever gone back on sale. It's not enticing folk in, it's just wasting their time.
Is it just me or are the chiggle websites down again?
tagnut69
Is it just me or are the chiggle websites down again?
Not just you, I can't get on either.
Is it just me or are the chiggle websites down again?
It's up, it's just not showing it of stock product
It’s up,
not at the moment!
Andy
any main site outage of more than a few minutes, let alone 24 hours was a hanging offence which never happened in the 25 years I worked in my role.
Yeah, same as. Heads would roll. The performance improvements when filtering are great, mind, the filters are "live" instead of click to apply, and seem to work well. But being down again after the previous outage? Wow.
Share price for Signa Sports United (owner of Wiggle/CRC) looks to have been in terminal decline for a good few years: https://investor.signa-sportsunited.com/stock-info/default.aspx
I wonder how tenuous the business is and what impact this will have? As others have said, they can hardly be taking many orders at the moment. Keller Sports failed earlier this year.
not at the moment!
Sorry, was an attempt at sarcasm, might have worked better if auto correct hadn't changed out to it.
they can hardly be taking many orders at the moment
I'd honestly be surprised if the impact was that high, huge numbers of people just whack their requirements into Google then buy the cheapest top five result.
Filters etc are for old people who want to go browsing websites and the like.
If its 2p cheaper on crc than the next couple of results on Google they'll get the sale.
Obviously no site means no sales but so long as the site is up and you can physically click through to buy stuff I don't think many people care how functional the rest of it is.
As a Wiggle+ subscriber having 2-3 days of downtime certainly is a bit annoying...I wonder if they're going to give out voucher codes
I bought wiggle+ recently but it doesn’t seem to show on my account anymore just says about joining 🤔
Anyone else having the same issue?
I had an issue earlier today logging into my CRC account where my details were incorrect, ie wrong name and email. I highlighted this through the chat and email to CRC and they stated that they had their experts working on it. That might be why they were down earlier.
My wiggle+ has also vanished. I’ve been given every excuse going. I asked them to refund it (only paid a few days ago)and I’ll pay the new amount. The bullshit they keep replying with with is a joke. They now want me to pay the next day delivery amount and they’ll refund me every time, yeah right.
I’ve placed 6 orders all elsewhere since the website update, that’d be another £36 I’d be chasing back.
I never bothered with wiggle+ as I didn't think I'd be ordering stuff weekly or fortnightly to justify the cost...but then reading that comment of it being unavailable for 2-3 days suggests there are people who must be ordering near daily on it - why not save up the orders and do a bulk buy?
I'm unsure why vouchers would be offered - unless the person genuinely does order daily as they will still be able to use it.
I'm confused as clearly human nature isn't matching my thinking.
Has anyone found a positive which outweighs all the negatives so far? Latest issue I can see is my 12% 'loyalty' discount isn't working once I've added item to the basket, i.e. I can see the 12% applied when viewing the product page, but if I add it to the basket it's applying full price. Argh FFS.
I am sure Mike Ashley will help them out if/when they get sold off cheap or go pop
but then reading that comment of it being unavailable for 2-3 days suggests there are people who must be ordering near daily on it – why not save up the orders and do a bulk buy?
Multiple reasons... and my Wiggle+ having just expired being a previous one.
All comes down to why I'd use Wiggle/CRC ...
Could be discounted wear items... like chains, pads, sealant etc. in which case I'm only buying whilst its discounted and available
Could be something I absolutely need next day ...
Filters etc are for old people who want to go browsing websites and the like.
stuff like a headset or BB you want to filter on a specific size/fit (and preferably in stock for that)
I'm late to the party on this.
It looks awful, like the site was hacked and replaced on the cheap. The images are an odd selection. The weird statements are just weird.
I'm struggling to find anything in stock. A real pet hate - if it's not in stock, don't list it. Just no.
It just feels crap.
never bothered with wiggle+ as I didn’t think I’d be ordering stuff weekly or fortnightly to justify the cost…but then reading that comment of it being unavailable for 2-3 days suggests there are people who must be ordering near daily on it – why not save up the orders and do a bulk buy?
I’m unsure why vouchers would be offered – unless the person genuinely does order daily as they will still be able to use it.
I’m confused as clearly human nature isn’t matching my thinking.
it was £10 for 12 months free next day delivery only had to need something in a rush 3 times for it to have paid dividends, looks like they've put up the price now.
this the finished product then? no update for ages, no filter by stock, no filter by discount
what a bag of ****