Bets are accepted: Will the car ordered come first or the bike?
No, not 2022. There is no longer any talk of this year, it is about whether and when one of the companions could be delivered in 2023.
The supply chains are gone, Corona, the war in Ukraine, a shortage of skilled workers, chips, closed factories in Asia, there are probably other reasons.
No one knows for sure, but everyone reports an economy of scarcity.
In the bicycle industry, which traditionally flourishes in spring, nerves are particularly frayed.
Bikes can be in the workshop for six months because pedals are missing.
Or a year, the circuit is broken.
It is said in the industry that Shimano, the well-known manufacturer of groupsets, is currently working with a delivery time of 560 days.
“How are we supposed to make bikes if we get gears in a year and a half,” asks a manufacturer rhetorically.
The pressure in the cauldron is high, the traders are dissatisfied, to put it mildly.
demand would exist.
But only around 15 percent of the ordered goods are delivered.
A dealer reports that he ordered thirty pieces of the top model Turbo Levo from Specialized in the spring.
And get three.
We are talking about an electric mountain bike in the price range from 6500 to 15,000 euros.
It's almost worse with Giant, they just can't help.
Sales are often lost if the retailer cannot deliver.
After the consultation, the customer reorients himself or looks elsewhere.
“How could we have made ourselves so dependent on China?”, people say in many places.
Globalization is currently suffering considerable damage, and its price argument is shattered by high inflation.