Photo by Andres Canavesi
Dear camper enthusiasts and DIY builders!
Our shared passion, tinkering with our travel vehicles and getting out on the road in them, is currently demanding a lot more than “a bit” of patience. This is not just about the difficult travel conditions – the problems start much earlier, with the (self-)build of our campers, vans and expedition vehicles.
Maybe you ended up on this article because you clicked on a “currently not available” notice for one of our products in the shop. Because of the many questions we get about product availability, we would like to explain here how this can happen and why we often cannot answer the question “when will you have it again” very precisely.
As a rule, though: everything is on order, and the delivery with the item you need can arrive at any time.
Raw Material Shortage and Freight Problems
Whether plastic granulate, steel, semiconductors for electrical engineering or, most recently, wood too – world trade is in a raw material crisis that has now, sadly, fully reached us as well. The best example is the new control panels for the Autoterm heaters, which you may also have been eagerly waiting for for months. The sales launch had to be postponed several times indefinitely, because the manufacturer simply could not get the semiconductor material for production – and that without any advance notice.
But we are affected in other areas, too. From the steel for our mounting flanges to the wood for the pallet shipping of solar module orders, we are currently fighting on all fronts to be able to deliver to you within a reasonable time frame.
But the situation is serious: if the raw material isn’t scarce, the transport is. In its article of 02/12/21, the Handelsblatt quotes the managing director of the Hamburg supply chain specialist Prologue Solutions, Patrick Merkel, on this:
“The ocean freight market is in its biggest chaos since the invention of the container.”
That is the impression we get here at tigerexped every day. Due to missing freight capacity, our products keep us waiting for weeks, if not months, while prices climb to exorbitant heights. As the Handelsblatt goes on to show, the cost of transporting a 40-foot container from China to Europe rose from 1,400 dollars to 8,000 dollars over the last year, and deliveries arrived 16 days late on average(!). Read the whole Handelsblatt article here, which looks at the raw material crisis from the point of view of companies like Volkswagen or Sony, among others.
What We Can Do
You can rest assured that we do everything we can every day to keep the products for your camper build deliverable. If a particular item you need is actually unavailable right now, please use the “Notify me when back in stock” button. You will then automatically get an email when we can announce the good news that a delivery has arrived.
All of us tigers thank you for your patience and understanding in this situation, on which we sadly have only extremely limited influence.
Together with all of you, we look forward to unlimited #rumtigern (roaming around) again – it can only get better.
Best regards, your tiger team
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