Caseking.de Acquires Overclockers UK

[btarunr]

One of Europe's biggest retailers of enthusiast PC parts, Caseking.de, has reportedly struck a deal that will see it take over Overclockers UK (OCUK). OCUK has been among Britain's biggest retailers of interest to PC enthusiasts, dealing with performance computer hardware apart from enthusiast parts (cooling, casing, accessories, etc.). This takeover will affect 40 members of staff at OCUK. The value of the final deal has not been disclosed by either side. eTeknix estimates it to be "less than €50 million". The Caseking staff we contacted refused to comment, saying they cannot comment on such internal operations. The deal is said to have been struck in early February, though both companies are keeping mum about it, perhaps waiting for the right moment to make the big announcement.



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[InnocentCriminal]

Hopefully it'll improve OcUK and restore my faith in that 'company'.

 

[the54thvoid]

Always enjoyed browsing caseking, hopefully this will be good news.

 

[btarunr]

Finally Caseking will have a proper English site.

 

[xenocide]

Finally Caseking will have a proper English site.

I think a lot of people are excited about that lol.

 

[the54thvoid]

Finally Caseking will have a proper English site.

I think a lot of people are excited about that lol.

Yup and yup.

I wonder if it will stop OcUK's pricing shenanigans. Yesterday the MSI 7970 was £437 and today it is £459.

OcUk intentionally fluctuates pricing to use later as a sales tool. I know most retailers do it but OcUK to it to the nth degree. For that reason, they're bastards. Hopefully some German retail ethic will seep in.

 

[stupido]

I have made orders from both places, ans so far no problem with either...

 

[Andrew Moore]

Yup and yup.

I wonder if it will stop OcUK's pricing shenanigans. Yesterday the MSI 7970 was £437 (not any special offer) and today it is £459.

OcUk intentionally fluctuates pricing to use later as a sales tool. I know most retailers do it but OcUK to it to the nth degree. For that reason, they're bastards. Hopefully some German retail ethic will seep in.

The card is question was on "This Week Only".. ie an offer.

It has now been removed from "this week only" as of around 10.15 this morning hence the price increase.


I am sure if there was an issue the ASA would have made contact at OcUK by now so the above slanderous comment should in my opinion be re-evaluated.

 

[Ross1]

Yeah, this definitely could be a good thing. I think the lack of people bemoaning the takeover tells you something about ocuk's current reputation.... not that i think any better of scan or aria, or even ebuyer really. Ive had bad experiences with all of them.

 

[MoonPig]

If they fire all the current staff and build it up again, i'll restart shopping there.

If not, i'm still staying a mile away.

Edit, that's not fair. There might be a nice, innocent chap in the back that hasn't caused me problems. So, i'll change that. If they fire all the twonks that work there, i'm happy. Mostly the returns department.

 

[the54thvoid]

The card is question was on "This Week Only".. ie an offer.

It has now been removed from "this week only" as of around 10.15 this morning hence the price increase.


I am sure if there was an issue the ASA would have made contact at OcUK by now so the above slanderous comment should in my opinion be re-evaluated.

In charges PR

Post edited.

For the record and the cheap seats - having an item at a low price and then going back up isn't what I'm referring to. It's the inflation of an articles price to a false level which is then reduced to make a greater "savings" tag. Like I say, most retailers do it but OcUK does it an awful lot.

So how about instead of 'intimidating' me (and by default TPU) with slander threats, how about having a steady and fair pricing structure for your customers?

And for the record, while I'm pissed off a PR monkey has come here to wave the legal stick, how about i tell you I've spent thousands at OcUk over the years.

 

[Doomedspeed]

Im a member and avid user of the OCUK forums and there is a big discussion about this.

Most of the users are happy for the owner, though worried about the jobs of the current staff.

I admit, there pricing the 'flexible' to say the least. An example, i was helping to spec a build for a user today. He specced the i5 2500k @ £185.00, though 3 hours later when i came to do it it had dropped £5, not even on an offer.

On the Forums: In the words of Spie (the owner): "There will be an announcement this afternoon"

Exciting Eh?

 

[heky]

The card is question was on "This Week Only".. ie an offer.

It has now been removed from "this week only" as of around 10.15 this morning hence the price increase.


I am sure if there was an issue the ASA would have made contact at OcUK by now so the above slanderous comment should in my opinion be re-evaluated.

Yes exactly, "this week only". Since when is wednesday the start of a new week, to suddenly take the card of the "This Week Only" list? Then it should have been "Today Only". This is exactly the shenanigans that go on at OCuk. Hopefully the strickt german hand will put an end to this!

 

[Andrew Moore]

In charges PR

Post edited.

For the record and the cheap seats - having an item at a low price and then going back up isn't what I'm referring to. It's the inflation of an articles price to a false level which is then reduced to make a greater "savings" tag. Like I say, most retailers do it but OcUK does it an awful lot.

So how about instead of 'intimidating' me (and by default TPU) with slander threats, how about having a steady and fair pricing structure for your customers?

And for the record, while I'm pissed off a PR monkey has come here to wave the legal stick, how about i tell you I've spent thousands at OcUk over the years.

Im not a PR Monkey and insulting a new member is hardly good forum etiquette is it? That aside Ill explain below.

I am one of the product managers/purchasers over at OcUK so when i see such comments is annoys me just as you have become annoyed when you have assumed I am waving the legal stick.

Pricing is reflected by dollar rate and margin, quantity purchased and supply + demand.

In some cases we are more expensive, in others we are not. That's just how it is at the moment with the exchange rates as volatile as they are. This is why HDD as an example is all over the place as one companies cost on a line such as a 500GB unit could be half the price of anothers if the first is fortunate enough to still have old stock. Graphics cards are similar in that $400 cost last week could have been £258 (1.55 $/£ rate) and this week it could have dropped to just £251.60 (1.59 $/£) within the space of a few days. Thats £10inclusive of VAT just because of a rate change.

Yes exactly, "this week only". Since when is wednesday the start of a new week, to suddenly take the card of the "This Week Only" list? Then it should have been "Today Only". This is exactly the shenanigans that go on at OCuk. Hopefully the strickt german hand will put an end to this!

Wednesday is always the start of the week for "this week only" deals ending the following wednesday as such it was on offer for a week. Not a day.

Today only doesnt start at midnight, it spans 9am until 9am the following day. This isnt a shenanigan. Its obvious to see to all who follow the website and the weekly emailer so theres no need for the "strict german hand" to end anything.

 

[the54thvoid]

Im not a PR Monkey and insulting a new member is hardly good forum etiquette is it? .

To be fair mate, you had one post to date and it was to defend your company. I call that PR.

Also, if you were defending your company, finishing with, "I appreciate your frustration about pricing fluctuations..blah blah blah.." would have gone down a treat.

Let's hope the new German masters make OcUK a little more price stable.

And FTR. If you have 10+ items in stock bought at 'x' value and then order more stock at 'x+1' value, it would be nice to know that you run out the old stock at the old value before applying the price hike.

I tend to see this happening at Scan, where things appear out of stock before prices are hiked.

Oh, and the £ has been climbing against the $ in January - a high pound leads to lower import prices... if the dollar is still used as a global standard.

 

[cavemanthreeonesix]

I do think in the last couple of years OCUK have improved particulary their returns have improved alot from the rly bad old days....

still i hope caseking include a lot of their products into the ocuk inventory as the UK doesnt really have a case specialist site, lots of hardware and watercooling sites but no one does anything like what caseking offers

 

[AlienIsGOD]

LOL @ the above by A Moore. i may live in a different country (Canada) but at my local parts store, the prices are almost ALWAYS the same day in, day out. After a quick check, the prices are the same give or take $10 on 7970s as they were on the first day my store had them http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=43_557_558&sort=0&brand=0&price=2&location=0

So in my opinion, the supply and demand doesn't float here. OcUK is infinitely bigger than Canada Computers, yet OcUK cannot have a stable pricing on a new product.

 

[Hustler]

Well, just had a look at the Caseking website, and in terms of design and user friendliness, the OCUK site is much,much better.

 

[Andrew Moore]

I'll not go into the ins and outs of the above points but the reason why we have 10+ and rarely go out of stock like other sites as you mentioned is because we try to ensure we have a constantly good level of stock to ensure continued sales and fewer disappointed customers.

Yes the dollar rate has increased so my point still stands. If the price is $10 better now than it was 2 weeks ago and we have stock purchased from 2 weeks ago then it will be higher, it'll not get dropped and dropped for the sake of dropping otherwise the company could end up selling stock at a loss if buy prices were to increase all of a sudden or if the dollar rate crumbled. Making the assumption we have a different cost price every day and that this should reflect in the price is wrong as this isn't the case.

I can see why many of you would think its PR but what was to say that from my opening post I have any connection to OcUK? I could just be a customer pointing out some small but valid points.

 

[qubit]

@Andrew Moore

I can see why you'd want to defend your company, but I've been the victim of fraud from them, in that I was sold a clearly second hand CPU as 'OEM'. I got a refund on it and I still have the pictures of that CPU to prove it. Heck, I even made a thread about it on TPU to warn people about this.

Also, OcUK make it a habit to never refund shipping charges until chased up. I've had this happen time after time and even happens if I initially remind them to do not forget the shipping refunds. It's obviously official policy over there and is against the Distance Selling Regulations to do this sharp practice.

There have also been various instances of poor customer services over the years.

All this has resulted in me not spending any more money there and that CPU I bought was me giving them one more try.

When one looks into Mark Proudfoot's history, there's not exactly the most squeeky clean trading history from him, so I'm not surprised at all these shennanigans.

In my opinion, Overclockers in it current form should be closed down by Trading Standards for the kind of malpractices they foist on their hapless customers. Hopefully their new owner will reform this company.

And before you go accusing me of slander, I have all the emails to prove my case.

 

[AlienIsGOD]

I can see why many of you would think its PR but what was to say that from my opening post I have any connection to OcUK? I could just be a customer pointing out some small but valid points.

Im not a PR Monkey and insulting a new member is hardly good forum etiquette is it? That aside Ill explain below.

I am one of the product managers/purchasers over at OcUK so when i see such comments is annoys me just as you have become annoyed when you have assumed I am waving the legal stick.

Well it was your 2nd post that gave you away... A Product manager/purchaser what have you is obviously going to defend his company, and the way you come across, we can tell you are not just some customer with VALID points...

 

[Andrew Moore]

@Andrew Moore

I can see why you'd want to defend your company, but I've been the victim of fraud from them, in that I was sold a clearly second hand CPU as 'OEM'. I got a refund on it and I still have the pictures of that CPU to prove it. Heck, I even made a thread about it on TPU to warn people about this.

Also, OcUK make it a habit to never refund shipping charges until chased up. I've had this happen time after time and even happens if I initially remind them to do not forget the shipping refunds. It's obviously official policy over there and is against the Distance Selling Regulations to do this sharp practice.

There have also been various instances of poor customer services over the years.

All this has resulted in me not spending any more money there and that CPU I bought was me giving them one more try.

When one looks into Mark Proudfoot's history, there's not exactly the most squeeky clean trading history from him, so I'm not surprised at all these shennanigans.

In my opinion, Overclockers in it current form should be closed down by Trading Standards for the kind of malpractices they foist on their hapless customers. Hopefully their new owner will reform this company.

And before you go accusing me of slander, I have all the emails to prove my case.

I agree that at times there has been some issues with customer service, RMAs etc but this I believe was a few years ago and before my time so I couldn't comment as I simply do not know much if anything about it. As for its current form, there's nothing wrong with how the company operates at present. Theres a growing number of positive reviews out there and fewer complaints by the day. This can only be a good thing and hopefully something that will continue.

 

[qubit]

I agree that at times there has been some issues with customer service, RMAs etc but this I believe was a few years ago and before my time so I couldn't comment as I simply do not know much if anything about it. As for its current form, there's nothing wrong with how the company operates at present. Theres a growing number of positive reviews out there and fewer complaints by the day. This can only be a good thing and hopefully something that will continue.

These were more than just 'issues', you can write off as a glitch, but systemic failures of the company. Indeed, I hope things continue to improve though.

I'd like to know from anyone that's traded with them recently if they still pull a fast one with the shipping refunds?

 

[chippy]

I hope they change the staff because some of them are very rude like that James on technical support but then again it wont worry me so much as i will shop else where now.
Prices on that site are just made up from day to day it seems maybe they just magic a price out of an hat depending how much extra profit they want to make on that day.

 

[btarunr]

You may all flame OCUK or Caseking, but keep it civil and refrain from using provocative language.