Cargo Bikes

Well, if @VeloSurMer is correct… everyone. Urgh.

Most of them do, especially since C19 hit.

Exactly echo what @VeloSurMer says. We are both dealers of various brands and I have no doubt they have experienced same as us. You get a customer, sell them a bike, attain a commitment (deposit), figure a likely shipping date that they will get their bike (then add the appropriate amount of C19/Brexit/courier/who knows type of delays). Then when the mftr totally blows past the shipment date, and the, until now, very patient and understanding customer starts wondering where it is at. You get a shipment date. And an invoice. For more than the sale price that you agreed way back when (3-18 months ago). You have to work out what you are going to do.
1) Continue with sale, mention nothing to customer, as they are already gonna be on edge. That you are selling them a product of £4-8k value, and will be taking an immediate and direct loss, thats before offering 2 years of product support and warranty.
2) Let them know, try to get new retail out of them, fail, and settle for a few hundred quid into the black on an £8k sale, and still have that 2 years of product responsibility.
3) Let them back out of sale and fully refund their deposit with your apologies. And likely receive a hurl of abuse online/reviews/forums/word of mouth etc.

Its a really shitty position and its happened to us on approximately a third of all bike sales since early 2020.

However. UA and R+M* have comfortable margins. So unless a £4.4k UA family has now become £6k, they are still making money, just not the large chunks that they are used to.

Mftr's and bigger distro's just aren't bothered, they have cost's too, but have found it especially sour that in last 2 years we are now having the issue of 'agreed' sales/orders (that we often now have to put very large deposit on, or pay for OUTRIGHT upfront) that are seeing price increases before shipment and not being honored at all.

The view of the public is that bike shops have had best 2 years of their lives. Some have. Tend to be the larger chains selling regular bikes or folk selling up their stock and retiring from the trade, everyone else has just grafted and grafted their way through it, glad to be here still, but its not the plain sailing that folk think it is.