Halfords Autocentre

It came with me when I moved and lived on a bus, which I'll talk about in a future episode, and we lived out on a farm in the middle of the Northumbrian countryside on this bus, and my bike was in the barn, and then we went travelling, and we came back, and at a certain point I decided I wanted a bike again.

I'd broken up I had a divorce and I was short of money and at the time I uh yeah I I didn't I didn't own a car I was changing jobs my new job was taking a while to start and it was gonna come with a company car so I wasn't gonna buy another car my my ex took her car with her, fair enough so I decided that I was going to fill the gap and buy a bike from Halfords for cheap and it was a junk bike it's what people call a bike-shaped object but, you know, it got me to and from to visit my kid and read him his bedtime story every night and that's what I cared about I was so unfit.

It had been a long time since I'd cycled and just cycling that mile and a half maybe was killing me at first, but I started to enjoy it.

I held onto that bike for a long time.

The investment aims to improve parcel automation and reduce packaging waste while creating 80 jobs in Doncaster.

Moving on to updates from department stores, marketplaces and specialists, where Halfords reported growth in like-for-like sales of 7% in the 26 weeks to October, supported by warm weather and seasonal demand.

Cycling sales rose over 8%, while the retailer maintained its underlying pre-tax profit guidance of between £55 and £65 million for the current financial year, with profits expected to

be weighted towards the first

They both also charge for returns, which retailers are entitled to do, but this meant shoppers were left significantly out of pocket each time they sent something back.

Boots, Halfords, House of Fraser, Pets at Home and Superdrug also failed to refund the delivery fees in either all or almost all of the cases.

Next also failed to do this in a few cases.

We also didn't get refunds for the actual product in some instances.

Joining Madland in this hall of infamy is Pets at Home, which refunded only six of our twelve mystery shoppers for the product they returned.

Halfords failed to do this on two occasions, and Nexon Superdrug once each.

River Island didn't respond to us when we reached out, nor did Halfords.

Boots said it is fully compliant with the law, but without our specific transaction details are unable to verify or investigate the mystery shopper claims.