A frustrating experience
I have had a pretty frustrating experience buying my bike at Merida and getting it assembled at a local bike shop. The Merida bike itself is fine, this is a review of the buying experience on merida.se.
1) Before I bought my bike, I asked for guidance for which fenders/mudflaps that would fit on the bike. I bought the ones which was recommended by merida.se, but they did not actually fit the bike.
2) The bike arrived with a big (cosmetic) dent in the fork.
The service here was OK - I got a refund from the fenders, a replacement pair, and some other compensation for the cosmetic fork dent (as an alternative they offered a non-original replacement fork, but I decided on some other compensation instead).
3) The local bikeshop which assembled my bike for merida.se did a pretty poor job. For example I had problems with a clicking sound coming from the drivetrain/pedals area (it was the pedals I found out later) after a few months of use. First I e-mailed Merida and asked if I could take it to another of Meridas partner shops than the one I picked it up from, they confirmed that was fine. Turned out that it was not fine, and I had to take it to the original local bike shop. That store had closed in the mean time, however. I contacted Merida to ask where I could get service for my bike (which at this point was under a year old, so I would expect some level of service). I got a call from their customer service, but it turned out that the person who dealt with cases like these was not at work that day. I was promised he would call back one of the next few days, but I never received a call back.
In the end I fixed the problem myself. It turned out to be due to the pedals being mounted without grease/assembly paste (this should always be done, not sure why the local bikeshop did not do this, very poor).
4) My front wheel was stolen, so I asked merida.se for advice for a replacement wheel (I told them my original order number and exactly what bike I had bought on their shop). First I was actually recommended a set of parts which was completely wrong (26" parts for my 27.5" bike). After I told them those parts were wrong I was recommended a 17C rim width wheel (I find out now, half a year later as I am becoming more knowable in bikes). The original wheel for my bike was 19C. The problem with this is that for a MTB a 17C is a very poor choice, and it severely limits the size of MTB tires that can work properly with the wheel. In fact the tires size that originally came with the bike (2.1") is not generally recommend for this rim size. I find that this is extremely poor guidance given I told them exactly what bike I had bought on their store. They really should be able to recommend a wheel which is a better fit for my bike. Maybe they did not have such a wheel in stock, but then they should say that, and give me the specs of the wheel so I could buy it elsewhere.
I was also told that the replacement wheel I bought at merida.se would come with rim tape - that was of course not the case.
5) The bike was shipped from Norway and took a long time to arrive at the local bike shop. This was a Post Nord problem so not a fault of merida.se. But in in cases like these I would hope for some communication from them. I had to contact them myself and insist on getting the postnord tracking number etc. Good service would be to inform customers of shipment delays like these, especially when you just get told the bike is ready within one week (took 2.5 weeks for mine).
So in short:
1) They recommended the wrong mud-flaps for my bike (got a refund and a set of mud-flaps that did work)
2) The bike arrived with a big dent (got compensation)
3) The bikeshop which assembled the bike did a poor job, and merida.se does not return calls as promised (had to fix the issue myself)
4) Poor recommendations on replacement wheel
5) No communication when the shipment of my bike shipment was delayed.
I would not recommend buying your bike on merida.se. If you do, do not rely on their guidance nor the competence of the shop that assembles your bike, and do not expect any post-buying service.