Now uninhibited, are we poised for a massive and imminent drop in the retail cost to purchase imported e bikes?
Please just the asked question, not the politics either way.
We were all hoping that the UK end user would benefit by suppliers being able to source from China again and not be affected by the European anti dumping tariffs (unjustified IMO). Unfortunately this is not going to be the case as the UK has already decided to retain the EU imposed tariffs and maintain them at the same level.
We moved out of China a few years ago now so this doesn’t effect us, all our bikes are now assembled in Portugal but still using 60% Chinese and Asian made parts (as do nearly all brands). Our prices increased last year by about 10% due to the extra costs associated with building in Europe.
Unfortunately, even though thankfully we are not going to have to pay extra duty, the cost of the new red tape will add about €18 per bike to delivery costs. This will have to be passed on eventually to the end user. This increase however is insignificant compared to the effect that supply and demand is having on the price of parts and parts deliveries. We are seeing increases of between 5% and 15% on parts and containers out of Asia that would have cost $2000 this time last year are now being quoted at up to $8000 although I believe this will settle down again by the summer.
The £ began its decline in October 15 when we decided to leave the EU and although has recovered a little we are still down by about 12% on the USD, but the increases caused by the faltering £ have already filtered through and are reflected in the prices we are already paying.
We are waiting for the dust to settle but I suggest that increases of about 10% will start filtering through in the Spring. I would be very surprised if we were to see any price reductions.
Our margins have reduced since this turmoil started and our prices will have risen from £999 to at least £1,299 by the summer.
I should point out that this is not by any means all down to Brexit. We have simply been caught in the perfect storm of Brexit, COVID induced supply chain issues and boom in the cycle industry, European anti competition protectionism and a little bit of inflation.
All the best, David