Hi Jon, my own experience of Sportpursuit has been good. I tend to use it for premium kit which usually isn't on discount elsewhere.
The way it works is pretty much like this, you
join the site, which gives you access to their catalogue. It appears the reason they do this (so they say), is to reduce the visibility of the deals in search results, thus letting premium brands dump stock to Sportpursuit members without affecting their new season range/the majority of their customers. You find what you want, buy it, and then wait for Sportpursuit to finish the sale - when they order all of the items together, along with everyone else's order. These get dispatched to your door.
Some lessons I've learned:
- The sizes go quickly on in demand brands, if you buy medium or large like me, order quickly or prepare to miss out. In most cases, once they are gone, they are gone.
- Generally they have been the best price available online for an item, I understand they will guarantee this if you find someone selling it cheaper. However, do consider P and P costs, which unusually they do not grant after you spend a certain amount.
- The cost of reduced prices is you have a long lead time, sometimes be prepared to wait 3-6 weeks for your item depending on how close to the end of the sale you order.
Personally find them useful, it's a well designed website, has some excellent kit on there, and a lot of companies dump samples at much reduced prices. If you buy outdoors kit all the year round for different activities without wanting something 'last minute', I'd say go ahead and use it. There are some notable gaps in their range of outdoors equipment, little technical climbing stuff, little camping kit - but that is balanced by good kit with usually solid descriptions coming up often.