Originally Posted by
Troul
I would be in 100% agreeance IF the backorders, out of stock, & low inventory wasn't a real thing. The price went up, yet the parts are not procurable I'd like to think the retailers for bicycle parts are pushing the manufacturers to meet the demand, but I don't think it's happening like that on average.
I think you perfectly demonstrate in this comment how economic theory fails to properly model reality. I imagine if even a very large bike retailer tried some to pressure a bike company, the person at the company would laugh and hang up.
You can't build or expand a factory overnight, and to the extent that manufacturers are trying to increase production, they are having supply problems of their own. It's a bit surprising to me that the extremely high demand means that bike shops are under stress and a significant number of them will fail due to a lack of merchandise to sell. Dealers have very little leverage and the bike companies don't have all that much leverage with their manufacturers. And the manufacturers may not have that much leverage with material suppliers. And transportation is a real problem right now as well.
At least we haven't had the kind of increases seen in the wood industry, where it everything doubled. At least not yet.