Posted by: martin
It sure is happening here out East too. A few shops said in late February that were not taking any booking before May 31st and some even said that they wouldn't sell many parts to keep stock for repais this summer.
Like you said @craw, some shops are already sold out of many things and they don't know when/if they will get them. Seeing this happen in advance, I stocked up of everything for the season but I know I'll use those parts at some point so it's not wasted. I've sold many old stock parts that I would never have used and replaced those with useful ones.
I wonder when this whole situation will get back to normal. It must be hard for shops to know how much to book for next year and how many employees to hire/keep. Bicycle retailer have some interesting articles on the subject for those who are interested.
dunno, i work in a shop too. we don’t have these problems, because planning. quite the contrary actually, biz is booming and since i got my contract in february we already hired 7 more people. but we also sell online, a lot. those shops that didn’t order enough probably are only selling local, right?