Covid 19 status fra Ibis Cycles CEO

I likhet med alle andre sykkelleverandører har også Ibis problemer med å møte etterspørselen i 2021. Ibis’ CEO, Hans Heim har derfor skrevet en oppdatering på hva som er status hos Ibis og om hvilke endringer dette vil føre til for kunder. Hovedkonsekvensen er inntil videre at mye av valgfriheten Ibis tidligere har hatt på komponenter når man bestiller sykler nå blir tatt bort. Årsaken til dette er at man ønsker å forkorte leveringstiden så mye som mulig, men det er dessverre ikke kompatibelt med valgfrihet på komponenter.

Les Hans Heims egne ord for detaljer:

We’ve had a num­ber of cus­tomers ask for an update on our orig­i­nal ​“Where the (*&^ is my bike?” let­ter we pub­lished in February. 

Dur­ing our last update, we talked about some of the big chal­lenges we’re fac­ing. To recap, there are sup­ply chain issues affect­ing every ven­dor at every lev­el of the man­u­fac­tur­ing process. This has caused ETAs to slip on some deliv­er­ies by over six months, which is why our deliv­ery dates some­times slip. 

At the same time, there’s a glob­al ship­ping cri­sis. There’s been a huge increase in imports, which has caused mas­sive port delays. There’s also a seri­ous con­tain­er short­age. These issues have been all over the news recent­ly, effect­ing many industries. 

So what can we do? In addi­tion to buy­ing key parts at retail to ship bikes, pay­ing exor­bi­tant amounts to air­freight parts and save time, we’ve also made key changes to our spec. 

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, we’ve offered a pletho­ra of options. Effec­tive May 1st, we’re sim­pli­fy­ing in order to stream­line our ordering/​forecasting. We’ve tak­en the most pop­u­lar choic­es and used them across mul­ti­ple prod­ucts, which will enable us to make a deep­er com­mit­ment to few­er items. We’ve also shift­ed to ven­dors with short­er and more pre­dictable lead times. These changes will enable us to improve our fill rates and pro­vide you with more reli­able ETAs. 

Here are some of the notable changes:

• Car­bon bikes will come with Fox Fac­to­ry series suspension

• Rip­mo Car­bon is the one excep­tion. It is still avail­able with a DVO Jade Coil.
  

• Rip­mo AFs will only be avail­able with DVO suspension

• Stem, crank, and drop­per seat post length will be matched to the frame size

• Han­dle­bar and drop­per seat post upgrades will no longer be pos­si­ble, nor will there be tire choices

• Build kits for all mod­els will be spec’d with 4 pis­ton brakes

• We’re bring­ing back the X01 mechan­i­cal build kit and offer­ing the NGX build kit across the range. Dri­ve­trains have been one of the most prob­lem­at­ic ele­ments in our abil­i­ty to deliv­er bikes and these addi­tions should increase the total num­ber of build kits avail­able and our abil­i­ty to ship bikes.

These changes will occur as prod­uct becomes avail­able. For now, you may see some car­bon bikes ship­ping with Per­for­mance forks, etc… As we receive new inven­to­ry, we’ll make a rolling change. If you’ve placed a deposit for a bike that’s sched­uled to be deliv­ered this Sum­mer or Fall, please check with your local bike shop. Your order may be sub­ject to a spec or price change. 

The ship­ping cri­sis has caused a spike in prices. We hoped it would be tem­po­rary and for the past year, we’ve been absorb­ing that cost, hop­ing the indus­try would sta­bi­lize. How­ev­er, the oppo­site has occurred. Prices con­tin­ue to increase.

In addi­tion to ship­ping prices, the cost of raw goods has has gone up. This has caused our sus­pen­sion, dri­ve­train, and oth­er com­po­nent ven­dors to increase their prices. Anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor is the exchange rate. The val­ue of the US dol­lar has fall­en sharply against oth­er cur­ren­cies, like the New Tai­wan Dol­lar. As our costs have gone up dra­mat­i­cal­ly, our retail prices will have to reflect those changes. 

Begin­ning May 1st, we’ll be increas­ing our prices by 6% across the board. We kept the increase as low as pos­si­ble to com­pro­mise between our increased costs and want­i­ng to hon­or the prices on back­o­rdered bikes. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, we would have hon­ored any pre­vi­ous pric­ing, but the cur­rent extent of our back­log makes this impos­si­ble. Any orders invoiced after May 1st will be sub­ject to this 6% surcharge. 

Despite the bleak news, things are start­ing to improve. We’ve made dra­mat­ic changes to our busi­ness which will rad­i­cal­ly improve our deliv­er­ies. We’ve invest­ed heav­i­ly in future prod­uct and staff and we expect to ship sig­nif­i­cant­ly more bikes this year. 

We look for­ward to get­ting you on your new bike!

Hans Heim,

CEO, Ibis Cycles