We are mainly a Crestron dealer. Placed an order last week for 8k worth of stuff. Just got the order confirmation and 1 item is able to ship now. The rest in 4-6 weeks…..

Still waiting on an HDMI matrix on another job ordered 5 weeks ago ……told today it will be another 2 weeks for that…….WTF?

Is everyone else having the same problem? I get that it’s industry wide but how the hell can anyone stay in business with shortages like this……….frustrated

Are the C4 dealers experiencing similar shortages ?

We’ve been told by Cisco that some of our gear is 8 to 10 weeks out. Car dealerships have almost no inventory and used models are selling for pretty ridiculous sums. Chip shortages seems to be affecting pretty much everything now.

Drove past a Ford dealership yesterday that had a full lot, the Toyota dealership next door was all but empty.

The chip shortage is affecting many industries. Check out availability of Ubiquity.

I bet most or all of them were waiting on chips and not ready to sell.

At this point, why is this surprising anyone anymore? Unfortunately, this is going to be our norm for quite some time. I'd say at least 6 months, and probably more.

IDK what the answer is. I guess so far I've been lucky on just about everything except Sonos, and receivers. I purchase 99% of my equipment through distribution, and remain open minded in what I sell. I have been known to sell Sonos, Heos, and even Nuvo if I have to, depending on what's available. Savant hasn't really had any extreme backorder situations yet, but I can always sell RTI or Pro Control if I have to.

I try to only give my customers a loose ballpark estimate until I know what I'll be able to supply for them. Most watch the news and are very understanding. I tell them I'll put together the best package I can within their budget, and they trust me.

I also don't have any issues with buying some things at retail and making no profit, if it allows me to complete an install and get paid.

I also don't have the clientele where I'm doing 6 figure installs in 8 figure homes. So, I'm not locked into anything months in advance.

Last February-March 2020 when we were buying ahead to be sure we had everything to finish two big jobs, the guys at our distributors were giving me a hard time saying I needed a tin foil hat.

They couldn't understand my predictions of a worldwide calamity regarding the supply chain collapsing because of a Chinese depopulation bio-weapon "accidentally" released upon the world and played off as a flu from people who ate some bat soup in China.

Exactly. I’ve been ordering product since January for a job in July.
I still haven’t received everything and I’m not sure i will in time.

Curious, was the only color on the lot white? (to the fools, dont bother commenting with racists remarks). As in company looking pickups? Same here, but there is a reason, its kinda a sham. They are not for sale and they move around from lot to lot or X period of days. All for looks and show.

Some dealers also have non-salable vehicles on their lots to make them look full. Their might be one out of five that could be driven off the lot that day.

And that's just the front. Their back lots are empty.

Also, when driving over the Houston Ship Channel bridge, you can see the Toyota import lot. This time last year it would stay at capacity. Now it is only ever half full at best, and I'm told that even most of those cars and trucks and not able to be sold.

Guess I'll throw my .02  in here.  As many of you know, I live in Big 3 country.  Here's what's happening right now.

The autos are simply outbidding everyone for the chips.  So, the chips that C4 and Crestron need are being bought by Ford, etc.  C4 and Crestron don't have nearly the buying power and margins that a new truck does, so they lose that battle everytime. Rumor has it that the autos are currently paying triple the normal rate.

On to the next problem, they've essentially bought all the chips.  They've started shutting down plants because of it. They simply don't have them and can't get them, which leads you to the empty car lots. They're literally building vehicles without the chips in them and will then have to go back through all of the vehicles to put the chips in.

Have a close friend that works on the 12v side of things.  He got calls within the last 2 weeks from all of the manufacturers, saying the same things.  First, it's going to get much much worse before it gets better.  Second, don't expect new product until late into the year.

When he heard that, he went and bought $1M worth of B Stock, and products like Jensen that were still available just so he'd have stock to try and get through the year.

My suggestion, buy up everything you can if you have the funds to do so.

Someone told me the Toyota plant in Ontario was putting chipped modules into cars as they come off the line. Driving those cars to their lot. Removing the modules and bringing them back to the plant to be put into the next batch of cars as they come off the line.
Ford in Oakville shut the plant down at the end of May for three weeks because of the chip shortage.
For many of us, we have been fortunate that business has actually been good during the pandemic, and it will end up being a chip shortage that hurts our business.

In the Ford lot? No, full variety of popular colors. But plays in hand with what others have said here. Strange days indeed, still busy til we run out of stuff.

I have a friend who sells these chips as a broker. He told me the other day he is on track to clear 1.5 million this year. Normally a 100-150k a year career.