Matt R. wrote:
Man, every industry is fucked right now. Supply shortages, longer lead times on things, higher material costs. I’m certain everything is going up
Yeah. What Matt said. I can assure you that almost no companies are raising their prices in order to increase their profit margin. They are just trying to recapture the huge hit they took to their margins as a result of all the additional shipping costs and increase in production costs. I run a bicycle shop in Toronto. Our Specialized sales rep told me a while ago that they saw an increase of 300% in the cost of getting a container from Asia to North America. It used to be $5k (CAD) and is now over $20k. (And that's if you can actually manage to get your hands on a container. Those are in SUPER short supply right now.) Add to that, the fact that - not unlike the guitar industry - the pandemic caused a HUGE surge in sales that wiped out all of the inventory from shops, to warehouses, to small parts suppliers, to raw materials. This is a huge strain on the supply chains. They just weren't designed to be cleaned out and replenished in such a short time frame. To put that into perspective, we would normally carry an inventory of 350-400 bicycles at this time of year. Right now, we have about 25. This ain't unique to us. This is every bike shop and supplier I know of. It's global. So.... expect prices on just about everything to go up - at least in the short term - until the inventory levels are back to normal, and the cost of shipping gets back to where it should be. Unfortunately, the experts in our industry are saying that it won't be until some time in 2024.
Basically, everyone who remained gainfully employed during the plague, had a ton of disposable cash and nowhere to spend it. All the money they would normally spend on gym memberships, airplane tickets, and vacations, etc.. went into things like bicycles, lumber for home improvements, learning to play guitar, recreation vehicles, motorcycles.... you get the idea....
