I Disagree with the Majority - My 2 cents

[dean1]

After reading many posts regarding "pre-orders" it seems most people here are too easily giving JB the benefit of the doubt. The general consensus is: What else can be expected -- they are making a bike with lots of good features at a very low price, and making improvements; hence, they cannot keep up with demand.

I disagree. They should know by now the demand for their products. They are not new to the market, nor are they in a new market. They have enough knowledge to know how many bikes they need without resorting to pre-orders. If 50 bikes were pre-ordered in each of the last 3 months, why do they still need to pre-order? Why not just order another 50 before the previous 50 are shipped, and then another 50, etc? Why can't they keep some sort of inventory based on historic demand?

I can think of only one answer: They have a cash-flow problem. What other reason could their be to ask the consumer for money for an assembly-line product they have not even ordered from their supplier yet, as standard practice? I can't think of any other industry that does that.

What other reason could there be? We, are being asked to supply that cash flow (an I will probably be complying). How come we can do it, but they can't?

 

[Chris Hammond]

After reading many posts regarding "pre-orders" it seems most people here are too easily giving JB the benefit of the doubt. The general consensus is: What else can be expected -- they are making a bike with lots of good features at a very low price, and making improvements; hence, they cannot keep up with demand.

I disagree. They should know by now the demand for their products. They are not new to the market, nor are they in a new market. They have enough knowledge to know how many bikes they need without resorting to pre-orders. If 50 bikes were pre-ordered in each of the last 3 months, why do they still need to pre-order? Why not just order another 50 before the previous 50 are shipped, and then another 50, etc? Why can't they keep some sort of inventory based on historic demand?

I can think of only one answer: They have a cash-flow problem. What other reason could their be to ask the consumer for money for an assembly-line product they have not even ordered from their supplier yet, as standard practice? I can't think of any other industry that does that.

What other reason could there be? We, are being asked to supply that cash flow (an I will probably be complying). How come we can do it, but they can't?

In a perfect world, I'm sure Juiced would happily increase the supply to match demand. However, when you consider all the logistics of the supply chain related to both acquisition of parts, frame manufacturing, and assembly, you end up with an final delivered product that was started 6 months ago. How do I know, my CVS was delivered last week, the manufacturing date on the frame was from December.
Realistically, i just think Tora and Juiced just underestimated the huge demand, especially for the all new RCS.
Ask Tesla about how easy it is to just ramp up supply to meet demand. Lol

 

[dean1]

In a perfect world, I'm sure Juiced would happily increase the supply to match demand. However, when you consider all the logistics of the supply chain related to both acquisition of parts, frame manufacturing, and assembly....
Realistically, i just think Tora and Juiced just underestimated the huge demand, especially for the all new RCS.

If you posted this 3 months ago I would agree! (for some models). This isn't JB's first hay ride. They are not running out of inventory, they are not keeping any. If the problem was demand at the Chinese factories all companies would be in the same boat.

Ask Tesla about how easy it is to just ramp up supply to meet demand

It takes 2-3 months to get a Tesla (something no one else makes, more capital intensive and more complex). The comparison does not work on JB's behalf

 

[Asher]

Others have said that other more major companies have been plagued by months long delays so it's far from evident that Juiced is incompetent as described.

 

[Captain Walnut]

My biggest concern at this point is how much I can trust them to help or respond in a timely fashion if an issue arises when I finally do get the bike.

 

[Reid]

My battery quit working, it died, a few days after unboxing the bike in late December. An internal failure. Juiced sent me a new battery right away. No problems since then. It is understood they may have been impelled because I was in the 7-day return window. And also, they knew that I write on this forum. All that I can say is that the response to my warranty request was prompt and satisfactory.

If I needed a new bike and am going in open-eyed about the wait and how the wait will be extended, I'd still do it, knowing I am protected from non-delivery by the cc company. It is not, uh, calming, what they do, floating on our funds. But it is how they operate for reasons only important to themselves. We get a bike at a good price. Eventually.

Why pay more to get less faster? Juiced could adopt that as an honest doublespeak sales slogan!

 

[devhead]

FLX bikes stopped taking pre-orders because it led to horrible customer satisfaction when the supply chain failed outside of their control. JB/Tora take a hit for every bad battery, manufacturing defect, late shipment, etc...

 

[dean1]

FLX bikes stopped taking pre-orders because it led to horrible customer satisfaction when the supply chain failed outside of their control. JB/Tora take a hit for every bad battery, manufacturing defect, late shipment, etc...

HUH??? I can buy a FLX right now withour pre-ordering. Bikes are in stock and ship in 7 days.

 

[dean1]

Why pay more to get less faster? Juiced could adopt that as an honest doublespeak sales slogan!

I like it! Turn a bad thing into a feature. They should come up with a euphemism for "pre-order."

 

[Reid]

I like it! Turn a bad thing into a feature. They should come up with a euphemism for "pre-order."

Pay us less to get more slower

 

[Reid]

The slogan crystalizes, complete! Ha ha:

Why pay more to get less faster? Pay us less to get more slower!

 

[Bruce Arnold]

I'm convinced that Juiced will be able to keep inventory in stock soon, perhaps after this go-round with both the RCS and the CCS. I believe that they under-estimated the demand and were overly optimistic about the time it would take to fill orders, rather than under-capitalizing their production and distribution.

Yeah, if I were at Juiced, I'd give people a delivery date 3 or 4 months away, and then happily surprise them when we were able to deliver at 10 or 11 weeks. It wouldn't change a thing except people's perception. Which is kind of important in retail. I don't know why they haven't figured this out yet. Probably because Tora's greatest strength -- being a can-do kind of guy -- is also his greatest weakness when it comes to exactly this kind of thing. Nothing to do with dishonesty. Everything to do with confidence. Misplaced confidence, as it turns out.

Fact is, there is a lot of real evidence from many contributors on this forum to support the "Juiced is a quickly growing company and needs to handle customer relations better" idea, and no real data to support your theory that they are taking our money in some nefarious fashion.

I bet the people who put down $1000 for the Tesla Model 3 are feeling pretty impatient too. I don't know if they think Elon Musk is doing them dirty, or if they understand that he just can't deliver as quickly as he thought he could.

It's been a long time since my logic classes in college, but there are a lot of fallacies in your OP. "Should know by now..." Based on what criteria? How do you know this? "They are not new to the market, and it is not a new market." Ebike are still in the early adopter phase; it's not what you'd call a mature market at all. And Juiced may not be a new company, but look how rapidly their product line is expanding, from the ODK several years ago to the OC, the HF, the RCS, the CCS, the CCA, all in a short period of time. "If 50 bikes were pre-ordered in each of the last 3 months, why do they still need to pre-order? Why not just order another 50 before the previous 50 are shipped, and then another 50, etc? Why can't they keep some sort of inventory based on historic demand?" The 2nd run of CCS had 50-100 bikes in each of the various configurations -- size of frame, color. The 3rd run had hundreds in each configuration. They didn't increase that much because a bunch of us bought the 2nd run. It took real money.

Mistaken premises = mistaken conclusions. Every time.

 

[dean1]

Fact is, there is a lot of real evidence from many contributors on this forum to support the "Juiced is a quickly growing company and needs to handle customer relations better" idea, and no real data to support your theory that they are taking our money in some nefarious fashion.
.

I never said anything was nefarious. Asher also put words in my mouth saying I accused them of incompetence. The "contributors" you speak of are providing no more evidence than I am, only thoughts in posts, and nothing I said contradicts your summary of their conclusions.

All I have done is suggest they buy more product than what is "pre-ordered" so there does not have to be any more rounds of pre-orders and provided a valid reason why they do not. The only thing I have ever pre-ordered was a product that was not on the market yet. This is not the case here. My theory on why they do not order from their suppliers without getting a pre-order from us first is perfectly sound based on the evidence available.

Yeah, if I were at Juiced, I'd give people a delivery date 3 or 4 months away

Then thet would probably get fewer orders, er, I mean "pre-orders."

They should claim what I am saying -- "by keeping zero inventory we can bring you an ebike hundreds of dollars less than the competition. It may take longer to get to your doorstep, but its worth the wait...blah blah blah"

 

[Fran Fabrizio]

I can think of only one answer: They have a cash-flow problem. What other reason could their be to ask the consumer for money for an assembly-line product they have not even ordered from their supplier yet, as standard practice?

There are many other potential answers:
1. It's not an assembly line product after all. This is small-batch manufacturing measured in hundreds at a time. The CCS is less than a year old and wasn't even done being designed when people were pre-ordering last summer. The RCS is even newer. It's not like they've been churning them out by the thousands for years. They may not have the flexibility/power with their supply chain to ramp up production like a larger manufacturer would have. I mean, if you've watched any of the videos of the production process, it's a fairly small operation, not a giant factory where they just push a button and activate the next assembly line and boom, production is doubled.
2. Maybe they're just not great at forecasting future demand. After all, they ARE doing followup batches larger than the last, just not enough to exceed pre-orders. This market is unstable. The North American ebike market is nowhere near mature and consumer patterns are likely changing rapidly.
3. Small businesses are conservative about ramping up capacity because one or two false moves or unanticipated hiccups in the supply chain or demand could be catastrophic.
4. This is the business model they've decided gives them the best competitive advantage. It lowers risk and allows them to iterate very quickly on the engineering side and make changes in near real time once they start seeing how a product performs in the field. For example, the first batch of CCS revealed that there might be a high spoke failure rate and they corrected it in a matter of months before the second batch, limiting their exposure to that problem to a few hundred bikes.
5. This is just a reflection of what they're good at and not good at. Tora is a great ebike designer who spends much of his time focused on the design and manufacturing setup over in China. Coincidentally, the thing Juiced does best is design and bring bikes with great specs to market both before and cheaper than other companies (yes, even with the long lead times they're still beating others to market in their spec&price segments).

Seems like it could be lots of other reasons than your opening hypothesis, and you seem to have shifted your thinking as well, since "They should claim what I am saying -- "by keeping zero inventory we can bring you an ebike hundreds of dollars less than the competition. It may take longer to get to your doorstep, but its worth the wait...blah blah blah" is a lot different rationale than "cash flow problem". Lean manufacturing is a strategy, not a problem.

The point is - while it'd be great if they were the perfect company in all aspects of business, the reality is that they have a product we want enough to accept the business model and lead time uncertainty. And if I knew on the day I ordered what I know now, I'd do it all over again without hesitation. I got the specs I wanted at the price I wanted that was not available anywhere else on the day I ordered it and still wasn't available anywhere else on the day I got it and STILL isn't available anywhere else today.

To use a better Tesla example, consider the Tesla 3. It's a better analog - a product with differentiating specs from the competition but at a disruptive price point (as opposed to the earlier Teslas, which are luxury cars with a luxury price). This pretty much aligns with the Juiced situation exactly. And Tesla too started taking pre-orders before the car was done being designed or in manufacturing. And guess how long those people have been waiting? 2.5 YEARS (and growing). But people are willing to wait, because the value proposition is worth waiting for given the state of the market - they're betting that when the car is available, it'll still be the best thing available at that price point. Same with Juiced, which is why we all are willing to do this.

 

[dean1]

There are many other potential answers:
The CCS is less than a year old

I saw it in a store 2 years ago

Seems like it could be lots of other reasons than your opening hypothesis,

Of course. I said as much

and you seem to have shifted your thinking as well, since "They should claim what I am saying -- "by keeping zero inventory we can bring you an ebike hundreds of dollars less than the competition. It may take longer to get to your doorstep, but its worth the wait...blah blah blah" is a lot different rationale than "cash flow problem". Lean manufacturing is a strategy, not a problem

Not a shift. I also suggested they turn a problem into a feature - - doesn't matter what the "problem" is in reality. You are cherry picking my statements to make your argument seem better than it is. Not going to waste my time repeating what you conveniently leave out.

 

[Fran Fabrizio]

I saw it in a store 2 years ago

The CrossCurrent S was first produced and shipped late last summer (I just missed the first generation CCS and therefore received my bike in December 2017 instead of September 2017 when the 1st gen's got theirs). Perhaps you saw the original CrossCurrent?

You're right, I missed that you were suggesting they turn their problem into a feature. I'm suggesting their model might be a deliberate business strategy as opposed to a problem.

 

[Solom01]

It's not the majority you disagree with, it's the majority of a group of people on this forum. Most reputable mail order businesses don't charge a credit card until they ship. Juiced is kind of like a kick starter funding. Besides the issues you bring up one has to wonder how many people pre-order one of their bikes and run a balance on their credit card, thus paying interest on the amount for months before they get their bike. And yes if something goes wrong you can charge back your credit card, unless they go into bankruptcy - in which case you're left holding the bag. If that should happen I guarantee you'll have a bunch of people posting here singing the blues. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when what appears to be one of the most desired brand of ebikes has to operate this way, makes you wonder about the state of ebikes in the US.

 

[Chris Hammond]

I have to laugh a little about the scare tactic I see posted here periodically about, "what happens if they go out of business?" So I don't have any inside info into Juiced financial situation. However, since their bikes are sold out before the shipment even arrives, they are not holding onto a large inventory. Couple that with the fact that they can't even make the bikes fast enough to keep up with demand, and the bikes are paid for by the consumer at time of order. I'll go out on a limb and say Tora will keep producing bikes forever under those circumstances. Couple that with the fact the Juiced has actually been making bikes for almost a decade. I'll go out on another limb and guess that nearly every other ebike maker would happily trade places with Juiced at this point.

 

[Solom01]

So Chris, why are you so defensive about Juiced? It's hardly a scare tactic to point out that very few reputable on-line companies charge your card prior to delivery and basically use a new customer's credit to procure their new shipments. The only well known company that does that is Tesla by taking deposits for cars that may not be delivered for a year or more, and although I wish them the best it would be fool hardy to think that Tesla may not go down in flames if they can't increase production or procure new financing. The fact that they've been in business for 10 years is nonsense, how long were Circuit City, Toys R Us and many other larger companies in business? Hopefully it's just that they have a total lack of customer service and communications skill. People really seem to like their bikes when they get them - but there are more and more complaints about lack of communications from Juiced when there is a problem - and when that starts happening with a company it's normally not a great sign.

 

[Barry S]

I think very few people would disagree that Juiced Bikes has come up with an ebike that's a great value. From what I've read during the CCS rollout days up until now, most buyers are willing to wait several months for delivery of their bike IF Juiced Bikes would simply communicate a realistic delivery time you could count on. I've met great idea and design guys like Tora Harris before, and they are wonderful at their craft. However, their "gift" often falls short when it comes to the business relationship with the customer, and that's where they need to delegate to someone that excels at just that. Of course, you can hire the best person available to handle customer support, but if you don't loosen your grip on the reins and let them take care of the customer than you're shooting yourself in the foot.