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news
Evans Cycles, Manchester (CC BY 2.0 Smabs Sputzer:Flickr)Halfords among the bidders for Evans Cycles
Halfords is reported to be among the bidders for Evans Cycles. Sky News reports that Evans requires more than £10m to see it through the next few months of trading.
Evans currently competes with Halfords’ Cycle Republic, which the group intends to expand to over 50 units from the current 24.
Evans has been lossmaking over the past two years during a period of expansion and last week we reported that ECI Partners, the private equity owners of the business, were inviting bids by the end of this week.
Companies approached are said to include other private equity firms and retailers, as well as retail turnaround specialists.
ECI bought Evans Cycles in 2015 and refinanced the company the following year following a fall in profits.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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17 comments
I have used Evan's click and collect recently, very useful. I had used them a bit for dropping off stuff for machaniching as it was on my way to work until when they trued a wheel they lost one of my middleburn bullet valve caps, offered to replace it with a planet x one, they just didn't seem to understand the middleburness of it.
Having bought bikes from two different local bike shops, I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody would buy from Halford or Evans!
Cycle Republic is very clearly Halfords, lots of Halfords branded stuff, similar look and feel. I think Evans' market is a little different from either plain Halfords or Cycle Republic.
There certainly are far worse potential buyers than Halfords and there are and have been people commited to cycling within Halfords. Also, regardless of who buys the Evans chain, is there any chance of getting a proper bike shop back in The Cut? Is there anything left of the original Evans business? I won't be particularly concerned if this relatively new chain folds, after all Evans' expansion is undoubtedly responsible for a lot of better*, but smaller businesses folding.
*better at being bike shops. Neither the big nor small failures have been very good at being businesses.
Question is though, whether Halfords – if they end up buying Evans, and as has been pointed out we don't know who the other bidders are – would do some sort of merger or continue to run it as a separate chain.
Went to a branch in London; they don't sell Trek or Specialised bikes for example and I found them to be poor to be honest in the selection they offer.
Has anyone experienced a Cycle Republic? It might be good for all we know?
Halfords is missing a huge trick and chance to make a shedload more money by having such a limited online selection.
If they stocked more of the Shimano Catalogue (and SRAM and Campagnolo) they would get a hell of lot more business, as their British Cycling/Cycling UK discount of 10% is decent.
For example they usually price match Wiggle.
If they stocked, for example a Shimano 105 chainset at £79, then you would get it for £73 with your British cycling discount, which would be extremely competitive.
However, they dont list it on their website!
You phone, up, find out they dont know what a "chainset" is, then you have to wait a day for the mechanic to turn up to work. He's not too sure, but knows they have an account with Madison, so has to order it to store.
So Halfords actually can get you all the Shimano range, but only the in-store bike mechanic can order it for you. That is really shit. You need to be able to do it all online.
jeez anybody but Halfords ffs, not even proper bike shops ... if you want something for your car, then go to Halfords.
If you want something for your car go to Euro car parts.
If the other bidders are Sports Direct, Rupert Murdock or Satan - I would go with Halfords.
I’d back Satan.
Didi always had interesting bikes, supported the tours, did it for the love, not profit.
Remind me: what is the definition of having a monopoly in a particular retail sector...?
The Grauniad says
"Halfords has about 800 shops and garages offering MOT testing and repairs, and wants to raise this to 1,000. This includes opening a further 100 autocentres – it currently has 316 – and doubling the number of bike shops that trade under the upmarket Tredz and Cycle Republic brands to 50. The firm shut six underperforming Halfords stores in 2017 and similar closures are planned this year."
At least they are actually persisting with a high-street presence rather than sucking the soul out of the industry like Wiggle.
Fair point. But the question is whether they'd keep the stores as "Evans" and the quality as a bit better than "Halfords", or just rebrand the lot and be done with it.
I would guess that they would dump the Evans shops where there is a Halfords close by, keep the other ones, start selling Halfords stuff in Evans and rebranding the bike areas in Halfords to Evans.
I don't think the Evans brand really competes with the Halfords name. As the article alludes to the overlap is with the Cycle republic name (I didn't even realise they were owned by Halfords until today).