Posts
12
Joined
2/20/2013
Location
Albuquerque, NM, USA
Edited Date/Time
2/18/2017 9:55am
Posting this cause I would like to save someone else the experience I've had.
If you visit another popular mountainbike website and are a Banshee fan you might have seen this.
2017 Banshee Spitfire frames are now arriving at Dirt Merchant Bicycles!
That was posted almost a month ago. I inquired immediately, first thing is I wanted to know is when I'd get the frame. Below is what I was told.
The first batch of frames will start shipping to customers Feb 13th....I can get a frame reserved with a $500 deposit. (Note it doesn't say a non refundable deposit.)
I replied that, "if I could get it shipped to me on the 13th I'm in". They took my deposit, and was told they'd get back to me with an update next week.
Lets just skip to the end, there were no updates unless I messaged to find out what's going on except for one. The one where they ask me to give them the remainder of the purchase price so I could get the frame 3-4 days earlier.
I reply, 3-4 days earlier than when? (because I've gotten no firm answers at this point) And I specifically point out that I just read of some guys experience where he waited a really long time for a Banshee frame and I was getting frustrated with the whole thing.
Again, no answer to the "when" question. I'm told I'll get it shipped directly to me and it will be three days earlier. I'm not happy, the communication has been a bunch of crap IMO. But I say that's fine thinking it will be any day now. (he had in a recent response to one of my inquires said "any day now".)
THEN, I realize it's the 13th... There they are asking me for more money to get my bike 3-4 day's earlier like they are doing me a favor when the frame is already late per our agreement... WTS...?
But, I tell myself to chill, I look at the pictures of the new bikes! (some dude has a large black 2017 built up and posted on here and it's the most bad ass looking bike EVER!) And for the next four days I make sure to check my messages and my Paypal multiple times during the day to look to see if there is an update. Then Thursday night I decide I'm done. I e-mail that I want to cancel, I'm fed up with the lack of communication, and I'm not happy that the 500.00 magically appears to be non refundable... (I'm sure there was fine print someplace when I sent the money, still...) NOTE
If you visit another popular mountainbike website and are a Banshee fan you might have seen this.
2017 Banshee Spitfire frames are now arriving at Dirt Merchant Bicycles!
That was posted almost a month ago. I inquired immediately, first thing is I wanted to know is when I'd get the frame. Below is what I was told.
The first batch of frames will start shipping to customers Feb 13th....I can get a frame reserved with a $500 deposit. (Note it doesn't say a non refundable deposit.)
I replied that, "if I could get it shipped to me on the 13th I'm in". They took my deposit, and was told they'd get back to me with an update next week.
Lets just skip to the end, there were no updates unless I messaged to find out what's going on except for one. The one where they ask me to give them the remainder of the purchase price so I could get the frame 3-4 days earlier.
I reply, 3-4 days earlier than when? (because I've gotten no firm answers at this point) And I specifically point out that I just read of some guys experience where he waited a really long time for a Banshee frame and I was getting frustrated with the whole thing.
Again, no answer to the "when" question. I'm told I'll get it shipped directly to me and it will be three days earlier. I'm not happy, the communication has been a bunch of crap IMO. But I say that's fine thinking it will be any day now. (he had in a recent response to one of my inquires said "any day now".)
THEN, I realize it's the 13th... There they are asking me for more money to get my bike 3-4 day's earlier like they are doing me a favor when the frame is already late per our agreement... WTS...?
But, I tell myself to chill, I look at the pictures of the new bikes! (some dude has a large black 2017 built up and posted on here and it's the most bad ass looking bike EVER!) And for the next four days I make sure to check my messages and my Paypal multiple times during the day to look to see if there is an update. Then Thursday night I decide I'm done. I e-mail that I want to cancel, I'm fed up with the lack of communication, and I'm not happy that the 500.00 magically appears to be non refundable... (I'm sure there was fine print someplace when I sent the money, still...) NOTE
It's pretty common for new models to be behind schedule industry wide. It's possible things are held up somewhere in shipping to the shop (and in turn to you). Hopefully they'll be in touch with you to sort it out. Good luck!
I'm very sorry to any North American customers who feel that there has been limited supply of Banshee frames recently. We have spent the last year working hard to improve this since we left our previous North American distributor, and are now in a situation where we have a fully operational logistics warehouse in USA. This took longer than we anticipated for a few boring reasons that I will not go into (think lots of red tape), but we got there in the end. The benefits for the customers are better pricing, through good dealers, so that they experience a good point of sale and ongoing support.
Currently we will be first to admit that stock is still limited, as demand has outstripped supply. Part of this is because we had to play it safe from a cashflow investment point of view (we are a small compay who can't just throw bucket loads of cash at problems), and we are learning a new market, as we are new to dealer direct sales and have been working with new dealers. We admit we under forecast demand a bit and had some serious delays last year. We are learning every day by working with good dealers and will endeavour to improve things for our customers in every way we can as time goes on.
As our stock levels improve over time, and we iron out any supply issues, it will become easier for dealers to get customers with exactly what they want in a timely manner. Currently our dealers are trying their best to look after banshee customers, but in recent examples, neither us or the dealers could anticipate a boat that was scheduled to unload in LA port on 1st Feb being delayed by around 2 weeks with no warning or reason given. This of course had knock on effects for people waiting for these frames sitting in the container. I can only appologise for any issues this delay caused. Again, as we improve our inventory leves at the warehouse issues like this will have less effect on ability to supply orders.
We plan to gradually expand our delaer network to cover all areas better, but we are picky about what dealer we work with, as we only want to work with those who have the best interests of their customers at heart and offer ongoing service. We also have a number of exciting ideas in the works which I'm sure will work out very favourably for our dealers and customers... watch this space.
I know it's easy to say when it's not my money, but try to have some patience dude.
When you finally get the bike you'll be super happy and maybe you can negotiate some discount or free stuff because you had to wait longer than expected.
Nobody died. Chill.
Post a reply to: Banshee Spitfire Ordering Experience