Yes, I assume they are sourcing from Haibike the mfgr or some distributor - has to be overseas to take so long. On ebay, Paypal is excellent protection for buying, but the listing on amazon include assembly by a local bike shop. Same price, same seller both places. I dont know what Im gonna do - procrastinate as usual likely! LOL
Random Bike Parts is a drop/shipper, at least for Haibikes. They may have a
few in stock, but the majority of what they list online gets shipped to them from a Haibike warehouse upon order.
I saw a high-end Haibike listed there for ~45% off last year, but their website seemed a bit half-assed. Like
@Ebiker01 points out, they only had one low-resolution stock photo of each bike listed, and (gasp) they spelled HaiBike with a capital B (among many silly errors and oversights)... The site's chat function, however, said they were unavailable to chat at that time, but if I ordered now I'd get an additional 10% off.
I called the next day and asked a lot of questions after ensuring that I could still get that extra 10%. The kid I spoke with (he sounded 18-20, tops) talked in circles for a while before I was able to discern that I had to order the bike first, then Haibike sent it to them to "check the battery and stuff" before they'd ship it to me. They had a tech that only came in 2 days a week (sounded more like he was a consultant), which may be why they take a little longer than other drop-shipping outfits to get the bike to you.
But when I asked if the bike had the EMTB mode update on its Bosch CX motor (and if they could add it if it didn't), nobody there knew WTF I was talking about (I gathered that there were two people in the "shop" that day). At that point in time, that Bosch update had been around for several months! It sure seemed to me like they were working out of someone's garage or basement - I was so unimpressed that I opted to buy the same bike from another place that ended up giving me an even better deal.
I've bought a couple of Haibikes - from 100% legit bike shops - that arrived via UPS with return addresses that said "Accell NA" (Haibike's North American parent company). It was pretty obvious that it the bikes were factory packed, not re-packed after shop "inspection." My guess is that if you really want that bike sooner that 2 weeks after ordering it, you could get them to have it sent directly to you from the warehouse.