Ebuyer website bought by Fraser Group plc

London Stock Exchange-listed Fraser Group is understood to have bought struggling UK online tech bazaar Ebuyer from administrators in a pre-pack agreement, sources have told The Register. Fraser Group – run by Mike Ashley, the founder of Sports Direct – houses brands that also include House of Fraser, Flannels, Jack Wills, …

[Persona]

Sad to see them go. I've used them a lot over the years but not so much recently. Last time I "directly" used them I got a really good price on a bunch of stuff for a friends PC only to have them cancel the motherboard from the order a few days later because apparently it was out of stock. They only had compatible motherboards at twice the price available so I cancelled it all. It was annoying as I had expected it all to arrive imminently but I was back to square one. Consequently I ordered it all from Amazon for next day delivery.

I did however recently get two short coloured network patch cables from them via Ebay. They were £2.16 for the pair with free delivery. I trusted the Ebuyer name so I chose them over more expensive offerings. They were delivered by DPD the next day and I would imagine that they paid DPD more for the delivery service than I paid them. They had clearly fallen apart, so their demise came as no surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps Frasers could buy the defunct jungle.com brand and reutilise that if they want to go head to head with Amazon.

[Michael Strorm]

Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time…a long time

Coming in late here (*) but..... jungle.com? That's a blast damp squib from the past.

Massively promoted near the peak of the dotcom era, but of the two or three occasions I used them, I'm pretty sure they messed up my order more than once.

Got bought out by Argos and quickly disappeared so comprehensively that if you weren't around at the time you'd probably never have known they'd existed in the first place.

Never occurred to me until years later what a wannabe knockoff of "Amazon" the name was.

(*) Only just found out eBuyer had gone under a few weeks back.

[RSW]

Sad times

Feel sorry for the staff, always used them without having to shop around as they were the goto place for next day at good prices. Only reason for not buying recently is not bought anything from anyone as the hardware I have does not need replacing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sad times

Very sad. I try to avoid buying from shops owned by the Fraser group because they are squashing competition in the same way Amazon does. Their brands include millets. Blacks, Go outdoors, sports direct, Evans cycles, to name a few

[abend0c4]

Re: Sad times

As far as I'm aware, Blacks/Millets/GO Outdoors are owned by JD Sports. Though neither company seems entirely beyond controversy.

It seems to be a consequence of the cyclical and leveraged nature of retail that most of the big "high street" brands seem to rotate between owners via periodic insolvencies. For a nation of shopkeepers, we don't seem very good at it.

[IGotOut]

Re: Sad times

You complain about the Frazier group crusing competition, but I don't really see that.

Most of the brands they bought were bankrupt or close to it.

They bought Umbro when they were struggling,

Evans cycles, bankrupt

House of Fraser, bankrupt.

Sofa.com, bankrupt

Jack Willis, bankrupt.

Republic, bankrupt

JJB, bankrupt

Misguided, bankrupt

Then they did part buys of other brands.

So far from killing competition, they have kept many afloat.

[wolfetone]

Re: Sad times

That's the same sort of argument people have regarding Wetherspoons. People argue that if it weren't for Wetherspoons the high streets would be devoid of pubs. Ignoring of course how they (or at least used to) haggle with various breweries and buy their beer right up to the end of the use by date for cheap which ended up in the pubs, which means the other pubs can't compete on price. Plus Wetherspoons would often set up shop in old banks which were/are nice old buildings, so again there is that argument they're keeping the fabric of the high street too.

And while it's true, like Frazier Group, it's one of those truths that is no less wrong or sad.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Sad times

Yeah, there's a definite trend of certain "Groups" circling like vultures[*], waiting for a business to die so they can buy up the remains on the cheap, whereas in the past, it would be acquisitions for a going, if smaller or even failing, concern. I suppose part of it is they don't want to be saddled with the inevitable redundancy payments and/or other debts that might come with it, instead leaving the government to pick up the "human debt" and the creditors to suck up the debt left after the taxman gets his share.

The risk is that someone else might get in first or be prepared to pay the liquidators more. But I have no doubt the vultures are circling over many dying businesses and are happy to get on on every five or ten "targets"

* No offence intended to El Reg :-)

[Persona]

Re: Sad times

This may not have been the case here but one advantage of buying a business once it folds is that their commercial property lease can be torn up and renegotiated on more favorable terms that don't include annual inflation plus a fixed percentage rent increases that drowned the firms ability to compete.

[TonyJ]

Re: Sad times

According the Wetherspoons themselves, this "use by" argument is a myth. To the point they've even threatened to sue any publications that repeat this.

They claim is they simply have buying power (thousands of kegs), are not locked into a single brewer, so can move around as needed, lock themselves into very long term deals and, because they open longer, their fixed costs are over a longer period of time.

I am utterly ambivalent towards them. I've been in some very nice Wetherspoons over the years and some you'd politely call shitholes but on the whole they do what they say on the tin - cheap booze, cheap food all done ok.

[Contrex]

Re: Sad times

When I worked in central Bristol pre-pandemic, I used to go in the 'Spoons near my office for a 99p bean-to-cup coffee. I got to know the staff a bit, they were very friendly. One day I mentioned the owner of Wetherspoons being in favour of Brexit (I wasn't!) to one bar guy. He said 'Tim Martin is a f***ing w**ker!' very loudly, and all the other bar staff cheered loudly. Sad news about Ebuyer. I bought my last two desktop PCs, my Lenovo laptop, mine and my wife's Motorola phones, and a bunch of SSDs, SD cards, leads, etc from them over 15 or more years.

[rg287]

Re: Sad times

So far from killing competition, they have kept many afloat.

Yes and no.

This is somewhat the Wetherspoons argument, as noted by wolfetone.

We should also consider that they haven't really kept many of the businesses going. They've bought brands and use them to sell the same stuff they sell everywhere else. So they get some locations, consolidate the less profitable ones and then sell the same stock under different brands giving the illusion of choice. This is perhaps evidenced by the new ebuyer.com site having a grand total of two laptops and three monitors available (and laptops appear to be the only computers they stock other than consoles & tablets). The rest seems to be furniture and accessories.

I wonder how long the ebuyer warehouse will stay open (if it even still is) and the ebuyer fulfilment moves to a Fraser/GAME/Currys warehouse and the website is just leveraging the brand goodwill.

More pragmatically, doing business with anything run by Mike Ashley is about as appetising as spending money with Jeff Bezos. And I don't use Amazon any more either.

So Scan or Overclockers is it then...

[MJI]

Re: Sad times

Game employees.

Forced to sell sports tat as they are pushed over to that rather than games.

Used to use Game until they started to fail.

Got launch day PS4 from them.

PS2, PS3.

Now all gone

[Blogitus Maximus]

Re: Sad times

Always on my rotation of sites to check when building new kit and I've spent a lot there over years too.

New rotation, scan/awd-it/CCL/overclockers/Amazon.

[sad_loser]

Re: Sad times

I avoid Amazon now as have been burned by people offloading unmarked returns as new.

If I am buying spinning rust, I don’t want one that has been subjected to multiple trips across the country in the back of a van.

One of the times when best to go to a specialist retailer.

[Squuiid]

Re: Sad times

Good list. Ballicom.co.uk is another good one.

[jren207]

Re: Sad times

Yeah, recently started using Ballicom a lot more. Website could be better in terms of trying to find things, but if you already know what you're looking for like model numbers etc then it's very cheap. Nothing wrong with any of the stuff bought either, and the customer service is alright.

I used to use CCL a lot but they went down hill in terms of product range/availability, and eBuyer always seemed to get more expensive over the years.

If needed I'll obviously buy some components from Amazon, but with them being a general retailer they don't always have everything I want or at the best price.

[lnLog]

Any good recommendations for alternatives that are not amazon?

[tmTM]

Scan or Overclockers.

PCPartPicker is a good place to compare prices of parts

[Missing Semicolon]

CCL aren't too bad.

[Chris Evans]

Maybe o.k. if they ship what you ordered!

CCL maybe o.k. if they ship what you ordered! I needed a very particular USB PCI card with a specific chip on it, they sent me boards with another brand of chip on it (which was of no use for our purpose) and refused to take them back.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Novatech? novatech.co.uk

[jeffdyer]

Instead of building from scratch I've bought my last two PCs from Novatech, the fun in assembling various bits has waned over the years but the Novatech barebones were a fine alternative

[Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?]

+1 for Novatech. I used to live near their base and back in the early 2000's used to delight in ordering online and being able to drive over and collect immediately.

Aah, simpler times.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's over 30 years since I first purchased something from Novatech - a 14.4k modem - promptly returned it - it kept hanging when negotiating. There was no hassle in returning it - which is why I have been a returning customer over the years. Ended up buying a Hayes which cost significantly more from elsewhere, but was a solid workhorse. That first item was the one and only item I've needed to return to them in all these years.

They were somewhere in the industrial estates off Eastern Road in Portsmouth in those days, before they moved to the bigger premises on the other side of Portsmouth, at Porchester.

Last time I purchased from them was a few days ago

[phuzz]

Being able to drive over to their store and pick up more specialised stuff, that you'd otherwise have to buy online and wait for delivery, was a real life saver sometimes.

[Michael B.]

Their website is so bad that for a few years now I thought that they'd got out of the components business and just did generic IT services now. It's only with the number of recommendations that I've dug deeper and realised they are still in the components business!

[Fruit and Nutcase]

There is a particular bug/usability issue in that the filter for items in stock does not persist - very annoying

[Vestas]

I've been buying pre-built stuff from PCSpecialist* for about a decade now. With the exception of one (ultra cheap) laptop which literally fell apart everything was rock-solid - one PC is still in use 13 years on - and without a trade account there's no way the average punter is going to beat the price by doing a self-build.

*Schenker in Germany, there's also some Italian outlet and maybe a Netherlands one too.

[TonyJ]

I walked away from PC Specialist after one machine.

The BIOS was crippled to the point you couldn't turn on virtualisation extensions.

They wouldn't release a non-noddy BIOS.

There warranty states you need their permission to flash a laptop BIOS and they are adamant there is no reason to need to do it, notwithstanding the raft of security patches.

And the forums were full of self-important "experts" who were, frankly, bullying arseholes.

My machine. My hardware. I want to flash it as and when I see fit. BIOS's haven't "bricked" due to failed flashing for decades. They all have a read only recovery component.

And forget about asking if a certain machine can run Linux!

[TonyJ]

S

I see one of the PCS Forum admins are here

/S

:-)

[abend0c4]

Only tangetially related, but does anyone know what's going on with Tier 1 these days? Their stock seems to have been dwindling for some time - they no longer seem to have phones, tablets or monitors and the available range of laptops and desktops seems ever narrower. I try to avoid buying stuff new these days and they were always a reliable source of good used kit.

[MJI]

Novatech

Got MOST of our current PC from there, apart from ebuyer for the firewire card, and scan for the cooler

[AMBxx]

QuietPC

Great service and they don't sell loads of carp that you have to wade through to find something worth buying. Nice people too.

[Vestas]

Hard to believe ebuyer could become shittier...

... but I'm sure Ashley will manage it.

[ITMA]

Re: Hard to believe ebuyer could become shittier...

I've bought a lot from Ebuyer over the years, mainly for work (monitors and other misc stuff) but also for myself. They usually had what I wanted at a good price and (depending on courier) I was able to get it next working day.

I always found them to be pretty good - apart from when they insisted on using Yodel to ship stuff. Yodel were and are absolute utter shite. They are the kiss of death to any business that uses them.

They tried to deliver 6 x 27" monitors to our site (a business address) after 8pm. You'd think the massive steel security gate blocking access to the entire site our business is on would tell them "fuck off, CLOSED, come back during normal business hours". But no. They tried SIX BLOODY TIMES every single one at 8:30pm or later.

Morons

To their credit, Ebuyer shipped another 6 monitors via a different courier which were delivered the next working day during normal working hours (about 11am).

.

Once Ebuyer switched to DHL, they were much better.

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: Hard to believe ebuyer could become shittier...

Before CityLink went bust, all of my Ebuyer deliveries came using them. When I was building and upgrading gaming rigs for my kids over about 15 years, we got quite friendly with the delivery driver who normally came to out us (in the sticks, fewer deliveries and thus frequently got the same driver).

But time moves on, and so have most of the kids (just got one stubborn one who likes it at home), and I don't really buy much computing hardware any more. For myself, I buy second user, and am also slowly working through a stack of redundant CPUs, MOBOs, memory etc. from the upgrades I used to do for the kids. I don't need huge amounts of power, so 5-10 year old kit suits me quite well. And the kids? Well they mostly buy ready made systems from specialist gaming companies, rather than building themselves.

I hope Ebuyer survive, but I'm sure that they will become just a brand being served out of another logistics chain, rather than their own operation.

[AJ MacLeod]

Not much sympathy here I'm afraid

I used to purchase a lot from Ebuyer, but once Amazon started to offer Prime delivery that was the end. The Prime subscription (at that time delivery only) probably paid for itself in just two orders - Ebuyer being one of those who insist that the entire northern half of Scotland is not UK mainland and accordingly charged ludicrous amounts for delivery.

[elaar]

Re: Not much sympathy here I'm afraid

Maybe if Ebuyer got to pay no corporation tax for 4 years, and fiddle the other years with multiple divisions and the "super deduction" tax break, then maybe they'd be able to offer free delivery?

Obviously if you buy your goods from US International companies, that are masters at tax avoidance, you might save a few quid, but it will eventually destroy all domestic companies.

[AJ MacLeod]

Re: Not much sympathy here I'm afraid

Other UK companies manage to respect geographical reality and I order from them where possible (NetXL have been very good.) If Ebuyer didn't want to offer free (or even a standard charge) mainland UK delivery they shouldn't have advertised it.

[williamyf]

Fraser bought eBuyer, with salad and scrambled eggs?

[AMBxx]

Oh dear

Downvotes from people who aren't Kelsey Grammer fans?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh dear

Downvote from Niles Crane..

[Steve Kerr]

it's a shame

They had good stuck of things I was interested in, bought lots of stuff from them in the past.

Was even about to buy some larger NAS disks from them the other week until I discovered 7 TB of backups going back a couple of years on it.

Can't say having SD as owners will do them any favours and wouldn't surprise me if all their current staff left (if they're not pushed) due to the working conditions that will be put on them.

Think the whole market is cutthroat so not surprising they were having issues.

[BenDwire]

My supplier of choice back in the day ...

I used them for everything my small business needed, and was very happy with their service over many years. Even once I hit retirement I still used them for consumables, disk drives and cables for my home network. Like many others I will mourn their demise, and move back to Scan or Novatech, who were also good, back in the day.

[Vestas]

Re: My supplier of choice back in the day ...

Scan were always a bit "iffy" IME. They were a monumental PITA if you had to RMA stuff on a trade account but that's a long time ago now.

First trade account I had was with Choice Peripherals - who went on to become Force9 Internet and then Plusnet. Easier life running an ISP rather than having scroats try to nick all the cpus & memory from the warehouse safe every week...

[AlanSh]

I stopped using them

I stopped using them when they asked me for a copy of my passport before they would accept my credit card - and this was after I'd used them previously.

And no, I am not a bad credit risk - never been in debt and I don't owe anyone anything.

Alan

[AMBxx]

Re: I stopped using them

I stopped using them after they delivered a laptop to the wrong address. They wouldn't refund until they'd received the return! No idea what would have happened if the laptop had 'gone missing'.

[MJI]

What a bucket of shit site now

Just had a look, it is dead to me, no motherboards and since when did adidis make computer components.

Not even got the firewire card I bought a few months ago from them either.

(Got HDV stuff)

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly haven't used them since 2015

When they really messed me around with an order I paid double-extra for next day delivery on and which didn't arrive till a week later. I realise that courier issues aren't their fault. But their attitude is.

[AddieM]

Ah, a shame. 95% of the parts in my gaming PC have probably been from them, over the years. Problem in my case being that the graphics card I have is perfectly good enough for twitch gaming at 1440p or strategy games at 4K; graphics cards upgrades come at a stupid price for not much improvement, and there's no point upgrading the rest of the PC much beyond the graphics card. Therefore, haven't bought any replacement parts for a while nor intend to. That doesn't do very well for box shifters in a very price-sensitive market when Amazon are always at their heels.

[tin 2]

Got caught up long ago in between the twin fiascos of OCZ vertex SSDs and ebuyer's rejecting refunds policy (https://www.theregister.com/2013/12/24/ebuyer_rates_staff_on_returns_rejected/).

Have bought nothing from them, and dissuaded many to do likewise since. I do feel sorry for those who just happen to have jobs there but glad to see karma does sometimes come around.

[bofh1961]

Never had a problem with them before

But I do now. I'll never buy anything from Ashley after what he did for Newcastle United... and I'm a City fan!

[Wolfclaw]

the "Ebuyer" name is what is most valuable for an online seller of various categories.

[steviebuk]

erm

Build a new PC a few months back with some parts from ebuyer. Lets hope nothing fails.

Also don't understand as the ebuyer site still goes to their normal one.

Watch Mike Ashley fuck it all up.

[clyde666]

I used to buy loads from them. Then one time ordered a lot of ink cartridges. They came in several separate deliveries. But was short one cartridge.

I took photos, tried communicating with them. They just insisted they had sent everything. Actually the last couple of emails said I had received everything. Called me a liar without using that word.

Given that was after having bought tens of thousands of pounds of components, ink, etc in the previous few months.

If I had been minded to mess them about, it would have been over a much more valuable item than a £12 yellow ink cartridge.

I've never bought anything else from them since, and never would have. Utter lack of civility in their customer service people.

[steviebuk]

explains

Why they lost all my old order history I guess then if they've been having issues. Lets just hope they haven't leak customer info at any point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like other I have bought a lot from them over the years but a lot less in recent years. I've just been buying less bits full stop.

Always found them ok, can't recall having any particular issues.

Mike Ashley is a king of enshittification not quite sure how he could fuck up an online store into the existential claustrophobic nightmare that is Sports Direct but I'm sure he'll try.

Most of the brands how owns are worse quality than a Chinese knockoff would have been back in the day

[Wiretrip]

Enshittification

If there were ever a poster boy for Enshittification, Fraser group are it!

[hamiltoneuk]

EBYR (Investco) Limited

ebuyer.com has EBYR (Investco) Limited at the bottom of the page now and the site not the same as yesterday. What can you sell to people who have got everything though?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used them for work over the years but less so over the past few as they went with the cheapest couriers who were utterly shit. Had assorted cases of deliveries being left somewhere vaguely in the vicinty of our premises but not on them. Their finest achievement was throwing a parcel in a road-grit bin elsewhere on the industrial estate where one of our offices is. Having obtained the photo of where they had 'delivered' it to, we had to do a trawl of road grit bins. This sort of thing does rahter discourage further orders...

[wayneinuk]

MR

I've used ebuyer right from the start, the pricing was fair, delivery was fast and the selection of stock was great. It is only in the last 4 to 5 years where I moved to others including Amazon and that was down to pricing and shipping.

I found ebuyer had started using some of the not so reliable shipping businesses & consignments were delayed or often went missing. This resulted in us letting customers down and as a consequence we started using other companies when we needed reliable shipping, having then seen some savings we jumped ship.

Today we buy a lot from Amazon, shipping is almost 100% reliable and faster than others, pricing is very competitive.

I would certainly be open to reviewing the new ebuyer, however, I'd take some convincing to make it my go to place now.

[jpennycook]

everything you could ever want

ebuyer now sell kettles and toasters

https://www.ebuyer.com/home-electricals/kitchen-appliances

[Homeboy]

Shame. I've been using them for my home PC needs since not long after they started up.

Always got decent prices and good service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Explains why a few days ago all hard drives were "out of stock" when I was looking to buy a stack of 6 10tb drives (the 6tb drives in my array are starting to reach end of life).

the new ebuyer only had 2 portable hard drives for sale so no chance of them getting my business.

Shame as I have had a lot from them over they years and always favoured them when wanting memory cards (SD etc) or flash drives as the odds of getting a fake were vastly reduced.

[Efer Brick]

Shame it wasn't bought by Situation...

And rename elbuyer.com