What affected us, and how we progress
Hi, our valued community members!
First of all, thank you so much for being a part of this community. I can see it is growing daily thanks to your contribution. Let us be better together.
I wanted to spread some background on how the lack of availability of specific products has affected our customers, community, and our business in the last couple of years. Of course, we share your frustration badly, and it hurts seeing that we have not been able to meet the demand for the previous period. However, all we want to do is share experiences with our community, and by doing that, we need products for you!
We have been in a painful growth period the last couple of years. Painful, as in lack of availability at the right time when we need it (when you need it!), and to foresee demanded forecasting, combined with the growth trajectory. Tripling our business in a short period, with six months lead time, can make it hard to keep up with demand.
So, back in 2020, when Covid started to impact global businesses, we could see difficulties in both local and international workforce, delays or even lack of sensitive parts, and logistics, which were total of the scale in terms of container availability. Shipping costs were skyrocketing. However, as a Premium speaker manufacturer, we are blessed to work with professional vendors who love our business. They have gone the extra mile by proactively sourcing sensitive parts like chips found in your subwoofer. Deliveries took longer, but we got almost everything we needed from our demand planning.
As for parts, labor and logistics skyrocketed; we could see some manufacturers took advantage of this and made adjustments by doubling retailing pricing. We also made incremental price adjustments which totaled a meager adjustment compared to most brands. We always want to give you the best value for your money.
One thing we could not deliver was our Premium 1723 Gloss finishes due to labor limitations at that time. Why Gloss? Our Gloss finish is not cheap, and we use up to 12 layers of paint! We, of course, did not want to skimp on quality, so we decided not to get any Gloss finishes for nearly a year. That was another painful decision to make, but we will never compromise on quality to get more volumes at the same time. It’s not in our ethos.
While customer demand was growing, the backorders went in the same direction. We adjusted production volume, but the demand increased. So by customers placing orders on arrival slots, we had already outsold containers.
What has been out of our control are container arrangements. Container arrival delays are still a problem but less than last year. Delivery dates are often moved by days and weeks, causing misinformation to our customers at arrival. When dates are pushed out, it also affects our third-party warehousing on inbound and outbound processing of your order. This has proven to be quite frustrating, especially for you.
I can personally guarantee you that we do everything we can to be on top of availability, and it has been our no.1 priority for 15-24 months. Finally, however, we see the light in the tunnel, and by later this year, we should be capable of delivering any orders ongoing (exceptions may happen, of course).
We are, of course, super stoked here at Arendal to see we are growing at this speed in the global market. If not for you, it would not be possible. We are blessed to have thousands of advocates worldwide, and we are honored to be in this remarkable position to have you on board.
We look forward to a bright future and exciting times ahead! Thank you all for being patient and understanding in this strange world we live in.
Thank you! You are a HERO to us!
PS! I just got an awesome jumper from an awesome A-Team member!
