10 April, 2009

Proforma Invoices

Lots of proforma invoices have been crossing my desk recently. That's great news because a proforma invoice is usually soon followed by a real invoice. And the real invoices are sent when goods are shipped. So this means that lot's of stuff is due to be shipped to us in the next few weeks. And we could sure use more stuff!

If you've been shopping at our site you may know that we are out of too many items. As I've mentioned before, we've had a great winter. Except for a couple of weeks after Christmas, there was no slowdown of the sort many bike shops expect in winter. In fact VO's business has almost doubled since last year. Thank you! But the bad part of this is that because we must place orders with factories 3 to 6 months ahead of time and because we hadn't anticipated the increase in sales, we are really low on inventory. That's not a good position to be in during the even busier Spring season.

In other news, we are starting to get quotes and samples of products we requested in Taiwan. At last count we were looking at over 80 new products. I just approved production of one of the new chain guards. The rackaleur is now in prototype stage. Stainless steel decaleurs, porteur racks and rear constructeur racks are about to go into production in a new factory (the samples look terrific). Then there are the frames; I'll have a post about them soon. As always, it's busy at VO.

6 comments:

  1. Congrats on the steady growth! Can't wait to see the new SS racks... any word on pricing for these?
    Thanks!
    Gary

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  2. The new racks will be cheaper, but we don't know the shipping cost yet, so don't know the final cost.

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  3. I'm very glad to hear that more decaleurs will be available! I've been waiting for those .

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  4. Thanks for working so hard to bring these great products to market. Any idea when the VO handlebar bags or french bottom brackets will be arriving?

    My sad little peugeot is grinding along slower and slower every day, with no place in front to stow its despair...

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  5. The handlebar bags are due in 2 weeks. The French BBs were delayed and are now due at the end of May.

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  6. arrgghhh, I'm upset at myself for not springing on the porteur racks when they were last in stock. Having to wait more is killing me!

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