Forme Stanage 1 27.5 Mens Hardtail Mountain Bike - Hydraulic brakes - £294.99 + £20 delivery @ Paul's Cycles

GT don't make any bikes they are just a brand who also buy from Asian factories and slap their branding on. Some shops sell the bikes boxed as they come from Asia and others check them out and adjust etc before handing them to the customer. There is a video on youtube where someone bought a Cannondale (sickbiker/supremebiker on youtube) and the state of assembly was appalling and completely wrong in places which is quite a high cost brand. If he had bought it from a local bike shop they would probably have sorted all the issues and he wouldn't have been aware of anything.

This Forme bike looks very decent for the money, decent entry level components and a modern geometry frame. If you spent the same money on a GT you would be lucky to get anything and if you did it would have garbage components like a freewheel, joke suspension and probably cheaper mechanical disc brakes and would only look like a mountain bike from a distance. I'm guessing a similar spec GT would be roughly twice this price possibly more.

Your guarantee/warranty is always with the retailer. The dealer is responsible for it. Yes normally they would fallback onto the supplier for frame warranty claims but if they can't do that they are responsible themselves. If they put a disclaimer with the purchase that the frame warranty is only now 2 years rather than whatever it normally is then obviously that would be different but even so products need to be of merchantible quality so you can probably claim for up to 6-7 years anyway if the frame failed. There is nothing here to worry about though, Pauls have been in business many years selling surplus stock and also your credit card company is jointly liable as over £100.

£315 is including p&p.