My two pence FWIW -
I've bought 2 x 2nd hand bikes for mates off
ebay recently; first one was an orro (£2000 RRP, paid £550) and a focus cayo (£1300 RRP, paid £400).
Both looked like new, the cayo looks like it has done 200 miles max where the orro had obviously seen some miles but had been well looked after. The caveat here is obviously you need to know what you're looking out for if going down the 2nd hand route.
I say this purely to point out the value in going 2nd hand. A £400 bike will still be worth good money in 12 months (if you look after it) so if it's not for you, very little pain in changing it. A new sub-£1000 bike is going to lose a chunk of its value as soon as you pedal it. You may be lucky, love it and still be riding it in 5 years... who knows?
C2W is a great scheme but you will find yourself buying a bike that you may or may not get on with and throwing things into the transaction that you don't really need, then buying some of the stuff you do need twice when you've sussed out your personal requirements.
It's all part of the learning process I suppose but if you can avoid costly mistakes (which, let's be honest, many of us have made) it's got to be better than burning through cash that will be better spent when you know what
is right for you.