Rivendell Inventory

[Doug H.]

Covid has wreaked havoc on the bicycle industry as well as many others. Supply Chain is the latest phrase we all know too well these days. But, Rivendell needs in my humble non-business owner opinion to buy more inventory. I seem to remember they like to pay for all purchases without using a credit line and that seems reasonable at first thought. But, I think they would increase sales to a large extent if they would bring in more product. A case in point are the knickers that went up for sale and sold out in two days! Brass headset spacers are rarely available. The list goes on.

Just a thought I had as I was ready to buy a pair of knickers to no avail.

Doug

Athens, Ga

[rlti...@gmail.com]

Riv has been like this for years. I remember having a credit with them and looking around for something that met two criteria: 1. I needed it and 2. It was in stock. The items in the intersection of the two circles in that Venn diagram was a very, very small set.

I tend to not even bother looking at their site anymore since most of what I need never seems to be in stock.

Robert Tilley

San Diego, CA

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 5, 2022, at 6:04 PM, Doug H. <dhansf...@gmail.com> wrote:

Covid has wreaked havoc on the bicycle industry as well as many others. Supply Chain is the latest phrase we all know too well these days. But, Rivendell needs in my humble non-business owner opinion to buy more inventory. I seem to remember they like to pay for all purchases without using a credit line and that seems reasonable at first thought. But, I think they would increase sales to a large extent if they would bring in more product. A case in point are the knickers that went up for sale and sold out in two days! Brass headset spacers are rarely available. The list goes on.

Just a thought I had as I was ready to buy a pair of knickers to no avail.

Doug

Athens, Ga

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[Tom Wyland]

I've been waiting for a year to buy a quill faceplate stem from Velo Orange. Ditto with their flat pack rack.  So it's not unique to Riv.

Tom

[Paul Clifton]

This response may sound a little harsh, but I don't mean to be harsh. It's a frustrating situation for all these days and a bummer when it's hard to buy things we want.

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Along with what others are saying, it probably also has to do with what they can get right now. They order MUSA clothing from a small shop in New Hampshire (I think). That shop has multiple customers, and some production capacity to balance, and who knows what the raw materials and labor situation there is. QBP can't even keep hubs in stock. How is Riv going to get any priority from suppliers when their order quantities are fractions of most companies?

Combine that with increased demand - for lots of good reasons in Rivs case - their products and brand are becoming more and more well known and desirable - and you end up with out of stock stuff. It's a bummer, but I don't think Riv can do too much about it - otherwise they'd be selling more bikes and employing more people.

And when Riv does stock up on stuff (like they did for the retail store), it ends up sitting on the shelves and putting them in a tough spot. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, so IMO choosing "don't" has a lot of supporting arguments.

Will's restock emails are an interesting peak into how often they get orders from different suppliers, and stuff just doesn't seem to be rolling in frequently or in large quantities.

Paul in AR

[Ron Frazelle]

Nailed it Paul!! 

Ron

"Think of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world." - Grant Petersen

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[David Person]

Based on a conversation with Will several months ago I know they have placed multiple orders with Nitto for things like the FacePlater stems and they are just not coming.  He said they are placed multiple orders spread out over months for the same items, anticipating the demand when they do eventually start receiving them.

[Alex Wirth- Owner, Yellow Haus Bicycles]

As a former *small* shop owner, the only way we existed was "at-once" ordering and availability.  The fact that a reliable supply chain is all but gone means the small folks are losing money and frustrating customers.

If you believe in small business owners I'd say grapple with the fact that small business and cash flow is just a reality; now made 1000x more intense by COVID/supply chain realities.

Cash flow issues were omnipresent for small retail operations.  It's a full-on epidemic with the supply chain issues piled on.

Buy early buy often if you want Riv to stick around....unless you want Trek/Specialized branded stores and Amazon to be your only options.

[Philip Barrett]

Remember that extending their credit line out too far nearly cost Rivendell everything a few years back.

The world is waking up to "sensible" riding and the likes of Grant & Jan (Rene Hearse) are at the forefront of the movement, but both are small operations and severely limited in their ability to stock what are variable sized products (bikes & clothing). I expect to see the big brands catch up soon enough & then your needs can be met by their massive supply chain of offshore manufacturing.

[Peter Bridge]

Strikes me that there's substantial overlap among frame models, which must create inventory challenges.

~pb

[Brian McDermott]

I emailed VO about the flat pack rack a few weeks ago. I guess they're reissuing it with better hardware, and they got the protos for the new hardware about a month ago. They said they're hoping to have the new version up in the spring.