Is Festool OK?

[dmick]

So, I've owned festool tools for over 20 yrs and I've never seen things so bad! My local rep was fired, ive heard local reps across the country are in short supply, just like the tools. My local Acme tools has almost no festool display space anymore and see that at other dealers as well.  Im really hoping that its just Covid, but it seems even the folks in Lebanon, OH aren't as nice on the phone.....is it just me, or is Festool in trouble or what???

 

[RustE]

Many companies are doing some sort of restructuring because of COVID-19. Most of the shows were cancelled last year and some already this year. Wouldn’t surprise me if the number of sales representatives decreases with each remaining person getting a larger geographic area.

No retail store wants empty floor space. If they’re not getting enough Festool products to fill-out an area, then putting something else in that area to sell makes sense. Retailers could also be waiting for new displays that go along with the Systainer3.

And I’m pretty sure Festool USA is located in Lebanon, Indiana.

 

[Stone Message]

During the early part of the Covid crisis Festool kit was flying off the shelves. I am not sure about the last few months as I had been out of touch with Festool UK.

A Festool UK Rep was unable to visit in October but we are now in touch again and I have no doubt that all is well despite the pressures of Covid.

Many of the Festool staff will be working from home and finding it very busy. I am sure that sales are buoyant and that is why they find it difficult to keep up with orders. It must be particularly difficult for the Reps whose day to day business is visiting distributors and attending shows - neither of which is happening at the moment here in the UK.

Peter

[modified after an update]

 

[six-point socket II]

I certainly hope everyone at Festool (worldwide) is doing well!

I think it was between Christmas and New Year that I requested a new catalog on the German website, a message popped up that they gladly will ship a catalog - but won't ship prior to the 12th of January. So my (wild) guess is that for the most part, the German staff is/has been out of office.

Speaking of product availability, so far I haven been able to source everything I needed - Festool and other. But it's clearly not as easy as it used to be. Try getting something from Lie-Nielsen, Veritas, Dictum's own products, (...) right now. It's a real challenge.

As Peter pointed out, everything remotely DIY/Arts/Crafts related has been flying off the shelves here as well. During the first restrictions and lockdown-light, people "invaded" DIY/ hardware stores and bought tools, consumables, materials ...

And as far as I know, the "container/shipping crisis" is not fully resolved yet, capacity not restored to pre-Covid levels.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[mino]

Yeah,
at least in Europe the DYI market exploded in the spring/summer due to the lock-downs and people suddenly having time for long-planned projects.

I had placed a Makita rail connector order in May and the shipment arrived in September (!). This for an extremely simple mass-produced part. It was nowhere available in Europe for a couple months actually.

It seems the supply chains were simply not stocked for such a sales rush which also was not "spread out" but likely had a different focus than a normal sales distribution does.
Even "mass" brands experienced supply issues throughout the year. Given how lean&mean Festool is normally operating, I would expect them to be hit pretty hard.

They likely had to emergency-restart production of a lot of parts where the stocks would otherwise last them a lot longer. Further decreasing the efficiency and effective production rates. Not to mention employees being sick home office productivity loss etc.

Lets hope it gets all sorted soon! On all accounts.

 

[bertv]

I think it was between Christmas and New Year that I requested a new catalog on the German website, a message popped up that they gladly will ship a catalog - but won't ship prior to the 12th of January. So my (wild) guess is that for the most part, the German staff is/has been out of office.

I received a copy of the new catalogue (German) with the delayed delivery of a ETS EC 125 yesterday. So it looks like dealers have received stock of those...

BTW The pdf-download of the 2021 catalogue thru the international website (I have trouble with the local sites working properly on my iMac) contains no prices, just nice blank (okay - gray) spaces.

 

[six-point socket II]

Thanks for the heads up Bert!

And yes, some of the local Festool sites are a little slow while loading/navigating - noticing this on my MacBook w/ Safari as well. And late night, I have trouble loading the FOG as well. But I guess that's when the server is busy creating a backup file.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[DeformedTree]

Just assume COVID for everything.  Different parts of the world get hit hard at different times, so supply chain of the supply chain gets all sorts of disruptions that can create random issues in places folks might think are fine.

This could be hitting Festool in different ways beyond production.  With no stuff to sell, no money comes in, they may have had to lay folks off, retailers may have had to lay folks off, not for anything special to Festool, just the same reasons as any other business.

Hobby types for sure bought tools if they were in an ok place financially to do so, or not concerned about money in the near term. As COVID went on, those folks probably had what they needed, didn't want to spend more, what they wanted was out of stock, or they protested Systainer 3  [tongue].

For businesses, many may have found themselves without jobs, or not allowed to do jobs. Cut back spending on non essential items.

Festool has probably felt this just like all companies.  I'm not sure if the OP was concerned about if Festool is simply failing, or if it was a question of COVID impact, or a question of festool's mental health.

If someone see's a "space available" sign in Festool USA front yard, sure be curious, but as is, I wouldn't put much thought to it.  Go to any store like HD or Lowes,  they are understaffed, limited hours, and keep having random shortages of products. All companies are experiencing this.

 

[bertv]

The flow of parts from the Far East to Europe and Northern America is also impeded by the scarcity of shipping containers in the producing countries — it seems that the circulation of containers has slowed down because recycling products (which form a very large part of the stream of goods from West to East) are often not welcome anymore, eg the waste paper business has almost collapsed.

Imagine being dependent on certain fasteners or other parts made in Taiwan for the assembly of —let’s say sanders— and none have been shipped for a while. That would cause some serious production delays.

BTW I went to do some shopping today in 'our equivalent' of Costco & noticed that the container terminal nearby was absolutely jampacked with containers — presumably empty and waiting for cargo to be shipped.

 

[mino]

...  With no stuff to sell, no money comes in, they may have had to lay folks off, ...

I cannot speak for Festool/TTS. But Festool is a German company with a majority-local (or Czech where same applies) manufacturing.

Compared to the US "norm", German companies almost do not lay off people in bad times. They just do not.

The business culture is to plan ahead financially for "bad times" much more so than in the US and to never run a company "on the edge" financially. This is also what make them less "agile" compared to the US norm in turn. They hire less and fire less. So to speak. There are also small local banks which will hand a helping hand in case of need to a mid-size company like Festool is, if it ever came to it.

In Germany, there is even a special "Kurzarbeit" law where in a general crisis the state will pay the workers on behalf of the employer to prevent /short-term/ lay-offs and the associated disruption to the wider economy skill sets etc.

I cannot imagine a situation a company like TTS would start lay-off based on such a short (in German view) crisis like the current one. No way.

Based on this I ma sure that the effects seen around are coming form the ongoing disruption of supply chains as well as their in-house manufacture in all kinds of ways by the various restrictions. This combines with what I presume is a major shift in what (type of) tools sell the most now as compared to a year ago.

The SYS3 mess, their online platform upgrade/migration (apparently right now in full swing) as well as the traditional year end vacations period only add on.

I personally expect the situation to not settle before late Q2/early Q3 after the first vaccination waves are over and the lockdowns get less widespread.

 

[AlexThePalex]

Festool is not OK, nobody is OK right now because our governments are destroying our economy with their draconian lockdown measures.

They think everybody has a gold stash hidden away and it is simply not true. People are seriously hurting financially right now, and companies that sell luxury goods like Festool are the first to feel that.

If the government keeps this up, the situation is going to get very bad for all of us.

 

[Mjolner174]

My local dealer who is a great guy told me last week that he is waiting on 17 orders to be filled by Festool. If you look at the US Amazon website many Festool items do not show up or show up as being unavailable with no idea when the item will be back in stock.

Some things seem to be unavailable here in the United States from any of the online retailers. For example the DF 500 is out of stock at every US online retailer that shows up in the top 20 when you do a Google search for the DF 500. I would think that it would benefit Festool tremendously to be upfront and make an announcement to the public, or at least to the FOG and explain the supply chain issues and when they realistically expect to be able to supply the out of stock items.

The other thing that I noticed is that Amazon is now charging more than the Festool market price here in the United States. For example the  TID 18 Cordless 18V Impact Driver Plus 4.0Ah kit , (2) 4.0 Ah Li Bluetooth Batteries and TCL6 Charger (#576480)
is $349.00 at most retailers, but is $369 at Amazon, 

 

[mino]

Festool is not OK, nobody is OK right now because our governments are destroying our economy with their draconian lockdown measures.

They think everybody has a gold stash hidden away and it is simply not true. People are seriously hurting financially right now, and companies that sell luxury goods like Festool are the first to feel that.

If the government keeps this up, the situation is going to get very bad for all of us.

I fully support your sentiment and view. Thankfully our gov finally returned to sanity and now enforces restrictions purely to a level of avoiding a health system overload. The notion of "eradicating the un-eradicable" was dropped recently - what a good grief that was!

But will disagree that a "luxury/high end" brands are the ones first affected.

Expensive products are normally bought by people who can afford it.
These tend to be the same people who have the buffers in place to "ride out the storm", so to speak. Their buying habits change less compared to the bulk of the market.

The most hit in a general crisis tend to be the "middle of the market" product lines. Their customers are more likely to migrate to the lower end market. This in turn compensates the lower end market's loss of "cannot afford anymore" customers.

Also, not sure how in other places, but over here the tradesmen are flooded with work, especially during the lock-downs, as people try to use the time-at-home to get long planned stuff done.

 

[DeformedTree]

we don't know how Festools sales break out.  But as mentioned, like many high end products targeted to professionals, the reality is the core group of folks buying them are people with disposable income.  Like those who buy high end DSLR gear,  a lot of festools sales is going to be to engineers/lawyers/dentist/etc.  Those with hobbies who have money to burn.  Sales to those folks is not hurt during such times.

Sales to your more average Jane/Joe will be, as they have to worry about where they spend money.  Those folks for sure stopped buying stuff.

Far as trades, it's all mixed on your area.  Some are real busy because people saw it as a time for home improvement, but the flip is those who put it off because they have no money for such work, or don't want strangers in their homes.  Similar for commercial work,  I've seen some stuff go full speed, some stuff stop.  If your area goes in a lockdown and you are not essential, a trade might not be able to work.  Some companies see this as a time to invest, build out, renovate, others see it as a time to cut plans back.  So while someone may be in a trade that is super busy, or know folks that are killing it in this time, the next company/tradesman may be in the complete opposite place.

In the US, we are loosing more people each day to COVID than we lost in 9/11.  The death rate in this country right now is about double normal.  4000 COVID deaths a day, makes for a general understanding things won't run so smooth as normal.

 

[Jeff Zanin]

Agreed with Alex and others that the economic aspect of this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by government mismanagement, incompetence, and negligence.

I have no idea about Festool but I agree with the comments that supply chain, shipping and other issues are affecting everyone.

As an anecdote: back in the summer which was between waves of infection here (Toronto suburbs) I was helping buiild a small concrete pad for a pool heater.  We do the excavation, prepare the forms, spread the gravel, add the reinforcing mesh and now go to Home Depot for the concrete.  On the skid in the concrete section there are three (3) 66kg bags of standard mix.  We need nine, so we ask the guy working there if he can bring another skid.  He says there are no more skids, what is there is it for concrete, and they have no idea when they are getting more, because COVID.

This is for a simple bulk product which I suspect is made locally or at least in Canada, it is is hard to reconcile a shortage with container or shipping issues.  But I guess the guy who makes the bags, or the guy who drives the truck, or the guy who fixes the truck, or the guy who loads or unloads the truck could be off sick, or taking care of someone who is sick. 

Undoubtedly the lockdown has increased the demand for many products and materials and likely broken most inventory / stocking / manufacturing / shipping algorithms.

Also COVID has become the all-purpose excuse for all sorts of ineptitude and general slacking off.

We ended up buying the last nine bags of _premium_ concrete they had on another skid.  So it is a pretty fancy pad for a pool heater.

 

[dallas8338]

Maybe it's been discussed before but here in the US Rockler started carrying Festool again during the pandemic.  They had to get displays, inventory and training ready for them.  I've heard people say their dealers couldn't get ahold of the Kapex combo specials or dominos- well at my local Rockler they have 3 DF-500s and 3 700s on the shelf.  I don't really go there often but the last time I did I was impressed with the selection- almost everything was in the new Sys3, and the accessory selection beats the local Woodcraft.

I'm sure other factors played into product availability and the countless release push backs on the STM and the edge sander guide- but let's not discount the big push Festool did to get back into Rockler.  There's no doubt they held back inventory to build up full displays for them.

 

[Mjolner174]

What town is the Rockler in with the Dominos?

T

 

[dallas8338]

What town is the Rockler in with the Dominos?

Cincinnati

 

[RustE]

What town is the Rockler in with the Dominos?

Cincinnati

Which is amusing since Woodcraft is about a mile down the road.

 

[jeh]

The overriding factor beyond sick workers affecting production reducing production levels over concern for reduced demand due to the virus. It was not just one component, but multiple components that go into a product. The farther up the supply chain the harder to get things moving again as there were likely downstream supply chain issues.

Add to that a remodeling craze, at least in the US, and demand for products to facilitate reopening. I'd guess plexiglass is either hard to come by or crazy expensive or both.

Lumber prices are slowly starting to come back down from the stratosphere, but not much. I've been holding off on starting a new home for a while, but at some point will have to start.