How can you build bikes in Switzerland in times of coronavirus?
Ride: What is the current delivery situation at Tour de Suisse Rad AG?
Reto Meyer: Demand is far higher than last year. Despite increasing target figures, we are now drawing on stocks further ahead in the season. We still have all e-bike models available within the season, sometimes at short notice, but sometimes not until early summer.
How is the work with the suppliers going?
Logistics are massively disrupted, the industry is under extreme pressure and the reliability of deliveries is decreasing noticeably. This requires flexible solutions and spontaneous adjustments to production planning. The long lead times will cause gaps in the 2021 model year in the medium term, which we will only be able to close again in the 2022 model year.
How does à la carte production work, where a bike is provided and produced at the customer's request?Our à la carte production continues to work well; in addition to stock orders and pre-orders from dealers, we have reserved pro rata assembly capacity for incoming customer orders. Local and individual assembly can play to its strengths in such demanding situations and available models still reach dealers within 3 - 4 weeks.
What is the situation with prices?
Suppliers are increasingly passing on upward price adjustments to us. These higher prices are only expected to have an impact towards the last quarter of the 2021 season. The stronger franc has so far allowed us to offset these factors to some extent. We prefer stability and want to compensate for the supplier price increases as much as possible in terms of stable model prices. Our non-binding sales prices should therefore remain stable in model year 2021. We had to pass on the increase in logistics costs by a factor of up to 5 to customers on a pro rata basis from March 1.
What is the outlook for the 2022 model year?We continue to expect a tense procurement period. Lead times of up to 24 months are challenging to deal with, especially for us as à la carte specialists. Prices will continue to rise and will be visible in the RRP in the new model year. Logistics plays a key role and our logistics experts do not expect any easing for the time being. This will further increase prices.
How and when could the situation ease?
We will probably only be able to tell whether the situation will ease in the second quarter of 2021. This would only be the case if possible OEM orders (orders placed by bicycle manufacturers with component and frame manufacturers, editor's note), which were placed as a safety buffer, were canceled to a considerable extent, thus freeing up capacity. It does not yet look like such a scenario. For the time being, demand remains higher than supply. However, it still has to be confirmed over the season that the sell-in to the trade will also go out, which has been the case so far.
In this difficult situation, are there also positive aspects?
The pandemic has made people more aware of bikes and e-bikes and they will enrich the mobility mix in the long term. In the short and medium term, however, the sharp changes in demand will lead to the bike of choice becoming a rarer commodity. This ultimately increases its value and also implies that it has become a complex product. It simply cannot be scaled as easily as online services.
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Note: This content has been automatically translated from German. Please report any incorrect translations.