Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, simracing has seen a huge boom in popularity. Racing has become an escape from reality for many in addition to the hobbyists and passionate community present beforehand. As such, sim gear suppliers have faced excess demand with Fanatec amongst the worst hit. Fanatec have written an open letter to all customers and the community as a whole to explain the situation:
Dear Sim Racers,
I would like to explain the situation we are facing at the moment.
Since March we are getting an unusual and unexpected amount of orders. This has to do with the lock down but also with the increased promotion of sim racing as replacement for the real life race events. This is obviously no reason to complain and we are super happy about the new popularity of sim racing in general.
The orders on some days were suddenly five times higher than in January and the January numbers were already 60% above the previous year. But despite that we are temporarily sold out of many products the demand is still crazy high and still three times higher then what we planned.
This means we have a shortage of manpower to handle all sales enquiries and technical support issues. We need to at least triple our staff from one day to the next and it takes time to train them in order to be effective.
A part of our team still has to work from home and this means distraction from kids which are still not in school etc. At the same time, our production can hardly keep up with the huge and sudden increase and this is causing products on pre-order. Logistics are also hard to control with a lot of uncertainties due to the pandemic which is always problematic as there will be delays and wrong shipping dates. But despite the external factors, we also have massive bugs on our new website which is causing a variety of avoidable issues and I clearly have to apologize for that. It looks like we picked the wrong webdesign agency but we are about to solve this problem as well within the next weeks.
Please note that we are urgently looking for a variety of new employees and have a clear preference for people with sim racing background so please feel free to apply for a job at Endor.
While we build up our team I would kindly ask you for patience. It can take over a week to get back to you on your messages but you will get a response.
Please support us with the following:
- Do not send us reminders or ask us when we will come back to you. Rest assured we will get back to you within 14 days. If not then you are welcome to remind us.
- Your tracking info will be sent when the product is dispatched. Please don’t ask for tracking info.
- Please read our FAQ and the manual before contacting us. This could avoid 30% of support inquiries.
- Please don’t be mad at us. Our team is really working hard.
Please feel free to share this article if you find some unsatisfied customer in social media so they get a better understanding. Thank you.
Despite all the difficulties I am happy to welcome a lot of new Fanatec owners and wish them a lot of fun with our equipment.
Thomas Jackmeier (Founder of Fanatec)
