Some bicycle shops across Canada are so busy with a pandemic-triggered boom in sales and its subsequent backlog that even answering phone calls is a struggle.
At Sidesaddle Bike Shop in Vancouver, the message when a customer calls warns that the store gets more than 400 inquiries a day.
“We actually don’t even bother trying to answer the phone, which sounds like terrible customer service, but it’s just we can’t spread ourselves that thin,” owner Andrea Smith said.
Curbside Cycle in Toronto sent out an email to customers on Thursday with a plea to stop calling or emailing when waiting on a pre-sold bike.
“We need to be blunt: If you cannot be patient, then it is better you get a refund this year and wait until 2022,” the email said.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna holds a news conference at Bushtukah, an outdoor gear store, in Ottawa on March 12. Health officials in Canada have recommended outdoor activities, such as cycling, as a way to get outdoors and remain active. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Things are pedal to the metal all over the country. Whether it’s Calgary, Toronto or Halifax, bike shops are slammed, with a surge that started in March 2020 and has not let up — and a backlog that some experts say won’t be cleared up for months or even years.
Bicycles provide an outdoor activity at a time when COVID-19 travel bans and lockdowns have made staying indoors either suffocating or dangerous. Health officials have recommended outdoor activities, such as cycling, and warned of the dangers of coronavirus transmission in gyms and on public transit.
That’s provided a surge in demand for bikes. Market research firm NPD Group says Canadian numbers aren’t tracked, but in the United States, sales of bicycles increased 75 per cent in 2020 compared with a year earlier. For the first two months of 2021, the increase year over year was 130 per cent.
But there’s also a supply-side problem, including a shortage of shipping containers and understaffing along parts of the supply chain due to physical distancing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
‘It’s pretty zany when we open’
It all adds up to an unprecedented time for Canadian cycle shops.
“Most days it’s pretty zany when we open,” said Smith, who also own a second Vancouver location, Central Valley Flat Fix.
Smith said she expects simpler bikes, like those sought by people looking for their first bicycle as an adult, to be sold out by May or June.
As for parts, she said one snag can block delivery for a whole shipment of bikes.
“We have one shipment that’s waiting entirely on left front brake levers,” Smith said, adding that it means someone who wants a custom bike might have to wait until October.
“Everything’s just very unknowable,” she said.
Price hike expected
On the production side, David Régnier-Bourque of Cycles Devinci, in Chicoutimi, Que., said the past year has been “very chaotic.”
Régnier-Bourque is the business development director with the company, which produces aluminum bike frames and also imports frames from partners worldwide. He said it takes about 150 parts to make a bicycle.
“It was definitely a huge challenge for us to source parts…. Definitely we were not able to produce at the level we would want.”
Régnier-Bourque said the market is not slowing down, and companies in Asia where parts are sourced will need to increase their production or even build new factories.
“So for the next 12 months, I don’t think that the bicycle industry is going to be able to catch up with the demand. And in more than 12 months, we’ll have to re-evaluate if the demand is as high as right now.”
He said he expects that increased demand will mean a price hike of between five and 15 per cent.
Near-empty shop ‘a little unsettling’
While the demand has left many people in the industry swamped, it’s also left some shops exposed as they wait for more inventory to arrive.
Gordon Robb, who owns MetroCycle in Toronto, says he’s received only about 20 per cent of the bicycles he’s ordered this year, but he expects more orders to arrive soon, and throughout the summer.
Gordon Robb, owner of MetroCycle in Toronto, says the shop has ‘to kind of hold on’ and ride out supply issues during the pandemic. (CBC)
“It is a little unsettling and I am a little worried, but I think we’re going to be OK,” he said. “We just have to kind of hold on.”
Spring 2023 until things return to normal
Edward Wright, vice-president for parts and accessories distributor HLC Canada, said the industry and consumers will be dealing with the turmoil caused by the pandemic for years to come.
He said he’s “fairly confident” that this time next year, a cycle shopper will have more options than they do now.
But Wright said it won’t be until the spring of 2023 “when you’d walk into a shop and experience what you would have experienced in spring 2020” — a choice of many different models and a two-week wait to get your bicycle repaired.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
