How Sigma Sports Saved £240k on Invoice Discrepancies

Even in the world of automation, suppliers still make invoice errors.

Sigma Sports, a UK-based retailer specialising in bicycles and triathlon gear, has hundreds of suppliers and were losing thousands because of invoice discrepancies. After implementing Claimit in less than a week, Sigma started identifying and resolving 22+ errors per month, eventually saving £240,000 over a calendar year.

We caught up with Tom Hughes, Head of Operations at Sigma, to ask him about the difference Claimit has made.

Hi Tom - Can you shed a little light on Sigma Sports?

If you're into cycling or triathlon in the UK, you know about Sigma Sports.

Founded over 30 years ago, Sigma Sports started off selling heart rate monitors to cyclists and rapidly became the go-to hub for the cycling community, supporting the likes of Sir Bradley Wiggins and the Linda McArtney team along the way.

From Oakley to Assos, we're known for our state-of-the-art bikes, wheels, tyres, components and helmets, as well as peak-performance triathlon gear, like wetsuits, goggles and running trainers. But we're more than just a bike shop. We also carry out personalised bike fittings, host workshops and put on events at our three UK stores.

When did you first start noticing the invoice issue?

Be it orders for headphones and bike computers or shipments of axles and inner tubes, we stock anything and everything you need for competitive cycling and triathlons, which means we have lots of different suppliers and lots of invoices.

As such, we sometimes missed invoice discrepancies completely. But in December 2023, we had a big invoicing issue with TNT. Digging a bit deeper, we realised we had the potential for lots of claims, but didn't have the time or resources to handle it ourselves.

That's when we found out about Claimit.

How was the process of getting started with Claimit?

It was remarkably easy. We were up and running with Claimit in seven days, with almost zero work required on our side and no painful integrations. The platform is really simple too, so there was no lengthy onboarding time.

The Head of Customer Service and I are the main users of the platform, and we occasionally work remotely or from our other UK stores, so it's great that we can just log on from anywhere too.

What difference has Claimit made?

It's been superb. Invoice discrepancies still happen, of course, but now we automatically pick them up and the Claimit system automates all the fiddly bits, so we resolve disputes and get compensation where required.

In the first year, it worked out at roughly 22+ discrepancies identified and resolved per month. Claimit helped us address and resolve all our past invoicing errors too.

But that's not all. We now have a huge online presence and we started using Claimit for lost and damaged shipments too.

How did Claimit help with invoice discrepancies, and lost and damaged shipments?

While much of the technical biking sales take place in-store, almost everything else is sold online, mostly to loyal customers that need something quickly.

Whether it's emergency tubes, a new saddle or an energy race pack, reliable delivery is very important for our customers who are either preparing for races or in the midst of training programmes. We offer next-day delivery and ship worldwide, but if these deliveries don't arrive in time, it can be disastrous (and lead to negative customer experience).

But Claimit has helped us tighten the ship. We mostly use DPD and Royal Mail for delivery as well as TNT. TNT caused us the most headaches when it came to invoice anomalies, and at scale it is hugely time consuming to run through on a weekly basis.

What has been the business impact of using Claimit?

The numbers speak for themselves. £240,000 revenue is the equivalent of us selling about 1000 top-of-the-range road helmets. But we got this additional revenue from practically doing nothing.

Claimit has also streamlined our ops. It's saved me and the wider team time and we've been able to focus more on our in-store experience as a result.

And finally. What's your advice for ecommerce companies suffering the same problems?

If you can save hundreds of thousands from almost zero extra work, why wouldn't you?

I've been at Sigma for 12 years and it's amazing to think what we could have saved in that time if we'd had Claimit all along.

Claim for invoice discrepancies with Claimit

By leveraging the power of AI, Claimit automatically identifies invoice discrepancies and raises a claim if there's a problem. So far in 2025, we've resolved over £1,000,000 in over charges from the couriers. Book a demo to find out more.