I have bought my tyres online for years now, and they are always cheaper. The only problem is when you buy something a bit unusual, then have an unrepairable puncture. It'll be more hassle to get it replaced quickly compared to the more common tyres sold at the fitters, if you want a matching pair.
To that end, it's always a good idea to check via a few fitters, including online, to see how prevalent they are. A good first start is finding out via a Google search whcih tyre size combos are the most common, as that means you'll stand a far better chance of matching tyres if needed, or at the very least obtaining tyres at the lower end of the price bracket, even for premium brands.
Sometimes, a local fitter may have better access to 'special' tyres that (say) may be suitable for that area, e.g. off road tyres for 4x4s, all-season and winter tyres in a remote (rural) area, because that's what makes up most of their custom, and they also have decent experienece of what works and what doesn't for the price.
An online retailer won't have that level of experience to suit someone's needs if they are out of the ordinary. For more 'standard' tyres for people living in more benign locations, then its fine buying online after a bit of research.
Blackcircles (BC) have, for example, a tiered list of 'approved' fitters. That being said, some are much better than others (best to check review sites/Google about that, and to be wary of fake positive and negative reviews).
I've sourced my last two sets of tyres from BC, the first time getting them fitted via a nearby 'approved' fitter, but what I didn't know was that they had only opened a month before, and it showed. All very flashy, but the quality of the fitting was poor, and even after I took my car back, one of the tyres kept going down and they charged me for that second go.
Ironically that new fitter was part of a chain I'd used for my previous car's replacement tyres and were generally very well regarded. It was telling that they didn't stay part of that chain for long, only a year or so.
I took the car to my main dealer who refitted the errant tyre for free - the problem only returned 5.5 years later when the alloy really started to corrode (so I replaced all 4 as the others were going the same way).
Thus I bought my next set via mail order from BC and took them to be fitted at my main dealership - at a cheaper fitting price than any of the BC approved fitted could. They did a good job on that, and despite a hiccup fitting the new alloys at the same time (not technically, they ordered/fitted the wrong ones, which I was compenssated for nicely). No problems with usage in 4.5 years.
You just have to find somewhere to store them prior to taking them to the dealership (or local fitter if they are kind enough to fit someone else's product). I suspect my dealership wanted to do a good job to keep me happy for me using them for maintenance, especially as my car was 12 years old at the time. I took full advantage of that.
If you but mail order (not just from BC), then as long as you can fully trust whoever fits them and they are happy to do so, then that can often be the best solution.
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