How long does Niagara take to ship an order? I placed my first order with them Sunday night and have heard not word one from them. When I log in to the site, my order shows 'processing'. Now I'm not an impatient man but in this day and age, three full business days and counting of processing is a bit much.

I get the feeling they don't actually stock much, just turn my order over to QBP. If that's the case I would've done better at my LBS. I'd have my order Thursday.

~kn

The site says it takes them 1-5 days. I can't imagine they keep all of that in stock but I do assume that they have larger warehouses elsewhere. I live about 4 hours away and my orders have taken over a week to get here. I continue to order from them because some of their prices are insanely awesome so I don't mind waiting a little bit.

I also ordered Saturday night and have not heard from them, but they may or may not send out an email.

100% sure there is a thread about this exact thing around here somewhere. Lots of posts about Niagara cycle.....

I've ordered several times from them and never had a problem until 2 weeks ago. I placed an order with them for multiple items through Amazon.com. The expected arrival window came and went (this week) with nothing in the mail. So today I finally contacted both Amazon and Niagra asking "Where's my stuff?" Niagra replied by email that somehow the order hadn't been properly downloaded (although my card had been charged) so they would ship it tomorrow and refund all shipping costs which amount to about $11.

Unfortunately I've got a project waiting on some of the order so I won't get to it this weekend, but all in all the items I'm getting were well worth the cost (even with shipping) and a couple more days won't kill me.

CMC

^That sucks, at least they refunded the shipping costs. At the very least, they do seem like they try to do right and good business... they just are on the slow side.

I've had them take a week to get a couple of parts shipped (plus a week for the parts to go through the shipping process). Slow.

-Kurt

I'm waiting on stuff for a commuter build for a job I go back to Tuesday.

^Same thing here, waiting for a commuter build. The only thing resmebling a "commuter" I have at the moment is a old 3 speed that needs restored. You guys are making me nervous!

So, do they in fact send out an email or not?

It took them 10 days to get my first time/ last time buy shipped and when I emailed them it took 3 days before I got a reply saying it would take the full 5 days before it would ship(it was already day 7 when I emailed them!) to slooowww for me I had a bike that needed to be done,never again.

Yes they do send out an email.

I had a deadline on a bike once and they took 3-4 wks. I ended up buying some parts from the LBS because I couldn't wait. It was a big order though, and my guess is that they wait until it's all in-stock until they ship anything. Small orders from them have been much faster.

They do have great prices on some things and lots of odd things that many shops (local or online) don't carry. But shipping can be a problem, but even if I'm not in a hurry, their lack of product details and poor photos are a problem for me. I would order a lot more, if it were easier and less risky to shop there.

There is a thread about them here which might give you some insight: https://www.bikeforums.net/trash/503630-niagara-cycle-frustration.html

I always get my order in about a week & am satisfied with that.

Interesting. Someone claiming to be the owner (I have no reason to believe it untrue) of the business posted in that thread.

Most of the time I get my orders from them in about a week. Most recently, I placed an order and checked "Priority Shipping" because it was within a few cents of standard ground. I got my stuff TWO weeks later. Judging from the date on the postage label, it took them 12 days to ship the box.

Additionally, I had an issue once with a missing item. I ordered two chains and inside the carton were two chain boxes. One had a chain in it and one did not. I e-mailed the company and they sent another chain but their e-mails sort of implied that I was not being truthful but that they would send another chain anyway.

All that said, I will continue to order from them because of their prices and selection. When I order parts, I might need a couple of different things and I'd rather place one order from one vendor (with one shipping fee). They are usually the company that can meet my needs.

They are definitely not the fastest but I have never had anything be obscenely late or anything. I order from them all of the time because of their prices.

In fact I have some brake levers coming to me from them right now. Looking through my email it looks like I ordered late in the evening on the 4th (meaning they would not have seen it until the 5th) and they shipped it on the 10th. So that was 4 business days, then a Sunday and then shipped on that Monday.

I order from them all the time. It usually takes around three weeks. I order for stock, to stay ahead of projects. If you need a part right away, then Niagara should not be your choice.

I have ordered from them a number of times and don't think it has ever been over a week. There have been a few times when the box was at my door before I really expected to see it. One time the item was out of stock (something that had a very very good price) and they contacted me (email I think, but may have been phone) asking if wanted the rest of the order or if I wanted to cancel the whole thing.

I just had the same problem with them twice in a row:

Ordered several items, and because they didn't have one of the items in stock, they held up the whole order, waiting for said item. No email, no call, no "should we send the order piecemeal as it is available". A couple weeks of this. Terrible customer service. I sent a couple of emails, very polite, explaining that in the future it would be nice to have some indication from them on the orders' status, and that while I value their selection and pricing, I will have to shop elsewhere if they continue to pull this stuff...

Nothing. No 'we appreciate your business' or 'hey, here's free shipping on your order we botched'.

I'm going to give them a 3rd strike before I send them down to work on their swing.

their shipping charges are ridiculous considering the amount of time it takes them to ship - seems like they tack on $5-8 per item ordered, even if it's a couple of screws or something



the selection is great, and the marked prices are quite good, but when you factor in shipping and wait time, it's less of a deal


don't use them if you're in a hurry, or just impatient, I guess

I ordered a KMC Z410 chain from them, and it came in large bag. The chain box was empty, and the chain was flopping around in the bag. There was no master link in the bag, so I emailed them. Their reply was essentially that the links sometimes fall out of the box, but the link comes separate so I can order it from their website. Huh? If it's separate, why would it fall out of the box?

I didn't feel like spending $.75 on a link, then an additional $4.50 on shipping, so I put it off.

I have never seen this on shipping charges from Niagara. I have ordered from them at least a dozen times in the last year. Heck, I usually get tires from them, and the shipping works out to about $1.50 per tire or less.

I monitor my supply spending pretty closely, and would not do business with someone charging $5 to $8 per item for shipping.

I have to agree with this statement. You can order something that weighs only a few grams yet still get socked with $5+ dollars shipping (within the same State!) and long wait times.

When you add everything up, including wait times, poor customer support and high-than-needs-to-be shipping costs, it starts looking like less and less of a good deal.

I haven't found the shipping to be excessive. I like to have a number of items to order and then add things to the cart (at any mail order bike shop) to reach the 'sweet spot' of items/money to shipping. Often things can be added that don't really push up the shipping cost, or one item will cause a large jump.

They carry a great stock of low-end items that are hard to find elsewhere, including tires.

Packaging has not been that great, and I have lost a $1 item out of a larger package- small items just thrown in a big box with tires, then one little rip in the corner of that box and the small item is gone.

I notice here in Dallas, the UPS itself takes a while to get here, even once it's on UPS and tracking.

lucky you - every single item added several dollars in shipping - even if they could be sent in an envelope



it happened over several occasions of online shopping - I usually add items to my cart at online stores since I'm already paying shipping

at Niagara, I remove items before checking out


every time



and I shop around before commiting to spend my money with them

because I don't always want to wait 2 weeks for something






maybe y'all are supershoppers or something - everyone's got their own talent

I've had pretty decent luck with their customer service, both in terms of being responsive and in making a situation right when some issues occurred. One thing that I would say (and they probably won't like this) is that you should CALL rather than relying upon communication by email. I've dealt with Renee there, who has been very nice to deal with.

Their shipping is certainly slow sometimes, no doubt about that. I think that basically they are just farming out orders, I don't think that they really stock all that much...certainly not everything on their website.

I agree with the posters above, they're great (price wise) as long as you're not in a big hurry.

-Rich