Hein Gericke

Looks like they have failed again. I know of someone who has been trying to contact their 'mail order' for a few days with no answer to phone calls. I see the shop in Hanger lane, London has just announced it is closing and the website is down 'for maintenance'.

Will be a blow for the staff losing their jobs and I'm sure there are people who have bought online who are waiting for the delivery of their gods which most likely won't happen.

Such a shame! Seems to be a lot of companies going into administration at the moment, I'm dealing with a few at work and it's not nice when you hear from their staff's point of view and it's all so sudden to them.

I just think there is no market for Hein Gericke in the UK as people prefer to buy bargain gear and spend more money on the bike itself... time to invest some shares in J&S I think

This time it looks like it's the whole lot, not just the UK operation.

Ah, I did notice on the German site they had technical difficulties - from my extremely bad German it looked like in their headline they were unable to dispatch. I now see the entire group has folded. I believe Stockwell will remain open and all the stock will be sold from there. Some very worried people I'm sure who have bought gift vouchers for Christmas presents and these could well be worthless.

I have to say I'm not surprised, based on my occasional visits to the so-called "Oxford" branch, which never seemed to have any customers in - though the coffee/burger van in the car park was always doing a roaring trade with white van man.

On a similar tack, the shop next to H's Diner at Berinsfield (south-east of Oxford) has recently been taken over by Infinity. This is its fourth incarnation that I can remember (it was a branch of M&P, then it became MPS Express, and most recently rebranded itself as Alex George). I hope they manage to make a go of it.

Though now it only does kit and a few consumables, whereas the stuff I've bought there in the past has mainly been parts and accessories (things like chains and sprockets), which the old staff were very helpful at ordering in if they didn't have them in stock. I think most of their stuff was sourced from M&P, and as far as I can tell they didn't mark it up, so it saved postage. OK, I do buy stuff on line, but sometimes it's good to be able to talk to someone with a proper parts book in front of them and know that you can take it back easily if it doesn't fit!

The bike is an occasional luxury for many, so shops supplying the kit for them are bound to feel the pinch early. :/

It seems to be a problem with a couple of big bike accessories companies in Germany right now. Basically there are 3 big players here: Hein Gericke, Polo and Louis. All do business online and have shops in pretty much every city.

Polo went bust beginning of the month and Hein Gericke filed on Monday. Basically they're both saying that 2013 was an awful year for them and their turn-over halved. They're now looking for new investors and if it works out they'll carry on. My guess is that they might join up maybe, but who knows.

No idea how Louis is doing but judging by how much stuff I ordered from them this year they should be ok   

A real shame if only one big player was left at the end...