Evan's Cycles in trouble - ?

[Big T]

Soho Cycling Society? Great Poultney Street if I remember. Owned by Paulo Garbini and his lovely daughter. He sponsored a race team (Soho Cycling Club?) and would pace up and down by the start/ finish line at Eastway Cycle Circuit gesticulating and shouting in Italian at his riders, wearing an ankle length leather coat over cycling shorts and jersey! He was quite a character. They had a boxed Campagnolo 50th Anniversary groupset in the window, which was "NOT FOR SALE"!!!

I went to Paolo Garbini’s shop years ago, probably in the 1980’s. We were on a day trip to London and asked a bike courier if there were any bike shops in the area. He pointed out Paolo’s and we went in. My wife bought a pair of touring shoes from them, and we bought a few other bits of clothing.

 

[Psamathe]

I bought my Bianchi from Evans a few year before the Ashley era started. It was on display at the Evans store at the indoor ski centre in Manchester, sadly a victim of cuts since. I asked in store about paying by AMEX but was told that the did take it. No problem, I had a backup Mastercard for such eventualities.

It was then I thought of a plan and told them I would buy it online for collection from store. Using my phone, I went to Evans website, via Topcashback, and paid by AMEX via PayPal (a common loophole) so getting around £50 in combined cashback on it. Order went through and I left with my shiny new bike not long after.

(Some) stores don't like you doing that (but company quite happy).

I recently considered doing the same with a camera upgrade mainly because it's a rare purchase and credit card question/block the transaction and I have to hang around the store listening to phone message "Your call is valuable to us ...". So when in-store choosing new gear I had to wait a few days for trade-in valuation and said I'll buy online and collect from store and they asked me not to use that. They get credit towards their sales (targets?) for a straight store purchase where they don't from an online purchase collected from store. No idea how Evans sales targets work for online with store collection.