Makers of the lightweight, easy-fit conversion kit, Swytch, have just launched a new ordering system which is now live. This promises to remove the brand's previous extended waiting period with customers now able to choose delivery times of within two or three months.
Were you to order Swytch's smaller 98Wh ‘Air’ battery option this month for delivery in September, it would cost you £479 (all prices given here include shipping). However, the ‘accelerated pre-order’ option would bring delivery forward to August for a total price of £579.
Similarly, the larger 198Wh ‘Max’ battery would cost £624 for September delivery and £724 for August.
The Brompton-specific kit that fits into the famous folder’s narrower forks attracts a £125 premium on top of these prices.
There are deposits of £150 and £200 to pay on ordering the smaller and large sized batteries respectively and Swytch say, “Your fully refundable deposit secures your place in our production line.”
Swytch’s previous business model was based on waits of up to several months for customers (waits that presumably helped maintain their competitive pricing policy).
Swytch add: “We will soon no longer be ‘sold out’ of Swytch kits – as the mountain of over 25,000 pre-orders we received since last September will have been fulfilled by the end of June, and we have a fresh batch of kits arriving to our warehouses at the end of June, so customers visiting our website will be able to place an order for delivery in August.”
Swytch’s previous pricing policy was based on a 60% discount of a quoted full RRP. It was this discounting that was at issue, along with stock availability, when the Advertising Standards Agency ruled against them in autumn 2022.
However, Swytch disagreed with the ASA’s ruling. Oliver Montague, CEO of Swytch Technology Ltd said: “It is common practice with the launch of a new product using a crowdfunding model to quote an indicative RRP.
“We provided evidence to the ASA that we had previously sold many (older generation) Swytch kits for between £999 and £1,200 throughout 2021 and 2022, via our webshop, and third party platforms such as eBay and Amazon. Therefore the indicative RRP of £1,299 as an inflation-adjusted price for a newer product model was fair.
“When you look at the price of a brand new e-bike of equivalent specifications, it is between £2,000 to £3,000, so on that metric also the quoted RRP was also reasonable.
“We chose not to list any Swytch kits for sale at full price from stock whilst we were still fulfilling pre-orders, as we felt this was the right thing to do for customers still waiting for a kit at the discounted pre-order price. As a result, the ASA ruled we should not advertise an indicative RRP, and we complied with this ruling in December 2022.”
Montague added: “There are already over 29,000 Swytch customers on the road in the UK, and we hope to grow that number significantly this summer by offering much faster delivery of our incredibly popular e-bike conversion system.”
