| Author | Message | ||
     Dynarider |
Shit my figures are off. Those BMW figures are strictly USA & the Buell figures are world wide, so the number of shops would be more than 450. Nothing in the HD release as to what percentage of Buells were exported this year. I know earlier in 2003 Buell was reporting that 67% of the XB's were being exported. If that holds true than the actual number of Buells sold per US dealer would fall to about 7 bikes per dealer. edited by dynarider on January 23, 2004 | ||
| M1combat |
7 bikes per dealer sounds more like it to me, but I'm talking out my ass and really have no clue... | ||
| Captainkirk |
So are most of the Harley salesmen trying to sell Buells....  | ||
| Buckinfubba |
NOPE | ||
| Buckinfubba |
but then why take the most obvious reason....hell that couldn't be any of the reason . we all know worldwide hd dealers and there sales force just love the buells to pieces. | ||
| Innes |
I went in my local dealers this morning in France big showroom new agency shiny harleys spread about all over the shop, Buells all piled up in a corner by the door handlebar to handlebar, 4 xb9r, in a row with 2 customised X1s & apair of xb12 on show just in front of them. you know as soon as you walk in, unless you've a Harley & a fat wallet they don't want to know you! They have HOG paperwork spread all over the shop & when I asked about BRAG in europe they looked at me like a light had gone out. so I smiled & left cos like banging your head against a wall, it's lovely when you stop!  | ||
| Dynarider |
but then why take the most obvious reason....hell that couldn't be any of the reason . we all know worldwide hd dealers and there sales force just love the buells to pieces. Brian I mentioned that earlier 1-2 or 20 Daves & Bubbas arent going to turn it around. Not when you are working against 450 other dealers who really could give 2 shits if Buell folded. | ||
| Dynarider |
Putting a couple bikes in a showroom next to the Roadkings & have an apathetic salesman isnt doing the brand any good. The HD dealer network can be a wonderful thing, but if the profit margin is as low as Bubba claims & there is no real $$$ to be made thru the sale of accesories like with the HD's then why the hell would a person even waste their time selling the bikes? Think about it, the dealers arent in business to make you happy. They are in business to make money. If the Buells are a pain in the ass to sell & it takes 4-5 Buell sales to equal the profit they can make off of 1 HD along with the extra goodies you know the owner of the new bike just has to have...then why bother? You read about people bitching that a dealer near them just dropped the Buell line. Well if they had to hire a person just for Buell sales..and they are only selling 5-6-7 bikes a year, could you really justify their salary? Could you justify the loss of floorspace that could be used for more HD's that pretty much sell themselves? | ||
| Innes |
In that case it would make sense to pull Buell out of HD dealers & franchise it in with someone like Triumph, Ducati or Moto Guzzi, cos they're riders brands not posers brands. | ||
| Dynarider |
Innes, I disagree on your point about Ducatis not being a poser brand. I honestly dont see very many Ducs on the street & the few I do see are very low mileage. Keep em clean & ride around town a couple times a year & pose. Ducati very much sells an image the same as HD does. Harley uses the bad boy, outlaw image & Ducati uses sex. Look at their bikes & the shows the attend..always have some stunning women who is 3/4 naked sitting on them. Not saying there arent poeple out there who put on a lot of miles on their Ducs, but the poser factor with them is right up there with the HD crowd. And if you pull the bikes out of the HD dealers & put them in Duc/Triumph dealers you would be limiting the amount of exposure that can be gained. The nearest Duc dealer to me is about 90 miles away. Buells can be sold alongside HD's but they need to be advertised properly & have the right people selling them. Big question is how do you get people working for dealerships that can sell the bikes? As a Buell salesman you would have to work 5 times harder to make a sale than your counterpart who is selling HD's. You bust your ass & the other guy just sits back & rakes in the $$$. How & where do find people willing to deal with that?? | ||
| Clydeglide |
Always keep in mind that when a manufacturer talks about vehicles sold they are referring to themselves and not the dealers. A sold unit is one a Dealer has taken delivery of, not an end user/customer. Dealers are the customers of the manufacturers not you or I. Just something to keep in mind while reading those reports. | ||
| Buckinfubba |
just to prove something here. you said something about hiring a guy to sell buells and only selling 5-7 a year. well yeah that wouldn't justify it at all. thats about what the boys here did in ayear and a half. I come on and do my best to present the product in the light it deserves and in a 6 month period I sell 25 bikes. so do the math I guess and keep my fingers crossed and do the best I can taking into account the winter slow down and I am guessing in my first full year I hope to get 37-40 bikes sold. now thats in a town with the population of about 25 or 30k. so In a bigger town with more potential customers i do belive it would support itself. but it is hard work I am here over 50 hrs a week and my job is also as parts manager,shipping and recieving, tech stuff sometimes still and marketing and the brag club. so know a person couldn't just be a buell sales man alone. I wear more than one hat but I am happy to work five times as hard ..it is 5 times more satisfying.Granted I am not the most money motivated guy in the world. I am more motivated by the proverbial "oh yeah, well watch me prove your dumb ass wrong" attitude | ||
| Dynarider |
Brian, but will you end up saturating your small local area & end up just sitting on bikes that have no buyers? Thats a serious question, with a population of 30K or so, your potential customer base is pretty damn small. Could you maintain 25-35 bikes a year, or will it slow to a trickle & end up selling the usual 6-7 a year after the initial growth spurt? I know you dont have the answers & are hoping for the best. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
Bubba, I know what you're saying about Ducati riders as Europeans say the same about HD riders but it's horses for courses, Europe is much more a sports oriented market due to the roads we have here. People selling a lifestyle fashion accessory are never going to be as passionate about sports bikes as you or I, which is why I think the brands need to be more distinct from one-another. It's time for the marketing people to realise that they've got a good product with a good potential customer base, but it can't be sold the same way as HD. I mean what next? a special Buell edition F150? come on, if its to be done do it right! Mr Grumpy is the dingbat formerly known as Innes, do not try this at home unless qualified, terms & conditions apply. | ||
| Captainkirk |
Dyna, you make a good point about saturation. This is where Buell is falling down, IMHO. The natural progression is from bike to P&A, which for Harley is HUGE and for Buell...well piss-poor at best. People don't trade in their Harleys for the huge leap in technology from year-to-year. They trade them in because they're rich poseur yuppie wanna-be bikers who can afford it. The Harley riders who are true bikers are usually holding on to their bikes. Buellists, on the other hand, tend to be REAL grassroots motorcycle enthusiasts as evidenced by the writings at hand on this website. You can almost judge a person's character by the bike(s) he rides. If a guy like Bubba can turn those kinds of numbers in a small town area think what he could do in Chicago, New York or Milwaukee. And if he had factory P&A behind him in the same capacity that HD does, the buyers might keep coming back for more. But generally, they take the keys and split until it's time for a new bike. Oh maybe a jacket here and a helmet there, but nowhere near the capacity of the Harley riders. It may not be the only answer but I think it's an area Buell is lacking in.  | ||
| Kaese |
"In that case it would make sense to pull Buell out of HD dealers & franchise it in with someone like Triumph, Ducati or Moto Guzzi, cos they're riders brands not posers brands." That is exactly what Modesto Buell did! Modesto Buell and Ducati basically told me that the Buells didn't have any problems. Bad for the Dealer and good for the customer. No wonder they picked up the Duck dealership. 3/4 of the showroom floor is full of Ducati's. Only makes business sense (Ducati is maintenance intensive)}. | ||
| Budo |
"Think about it, the dealers arent in business to make you happy" That is exactly why I no longer own a Buell. My dealer could not give a rats ass if my bike was running or if I was a happy customer. Treat me like crap and guess what, I will dump your product and tell everyone that I know about you and your product. A high maintenance bike like mine. I saw the dealer often. You can sell a bike once, how many times can you service it? Dosen't the dealership make money of off service? When my 1998 S1W blew up at 19k miles. My dealer said "What do you expect us to do about it?" The next nearest dealership is 3.5 hours away, so I was in a bind. My dealer Bumpas HD/Buell of Memphis is so bad that there are three independant shops located within one mile of them, just to service HD's. "Think about it, the dealers arent in business to make you happy" Yep that will keep us comming back. | ||
| Opto |
In my part of the woods (Oz) the local dealer staff sell both HD and Buell, they don't seem to care which bike you want, "as long as you're happy with it you will probably buy it" seems to be the way they work. To see if you like it they give you a test ride and then let you go your own way to think about it. There are no pressure tactics, and if you don't like bike A for certain reasons then maybe you'd like bike B...would you like to take bike B for a ride? I bought an HD and a Buell from them, (7 years apart) the staff are trained on both and do not seem to disadvantage the Buell sales at all...after all, the staff have to break in the demo models. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
Sounds like you've got a good balanced system in Oz, glad to see it works somewhere. Now what've you done with my ruby slippers toto? | ||
| Kaudette |
Dyna, In Europe the Ducs are not typically the posers - I see just about as many Ducs out on the road as Honda's or Yamaha's - more Monsters than the 749 or 999 however so that has something to do with it as they have been around for ages. As for HD / Buell, there are a myriad of issues that need to be looked at which would take chapters and not just lines to cover in any depth. The clear issues however are price / performance for entry / mid level rides - the Buells are just too expensive to be mainstream - whether this is cost or HD margin based I don't know but I can get an R1 for cheaper than an XB12. The brand is very weak for any but the core of riders - how many times have you been asked - what is that bike - it is neet! ? That speaks for itself. Then there is the dealer network that typically does not really care much for the Buells for the above-mentioned issues which turns off potential customers in droves. When looking for the 12 (after having bought a 9) I was seriously considering a Monster or MV Brutale because the dealer over here was simply poor on "cust sat"... I bought the 12 nevertheless but in all honesty more because of the board here and wanting to keep the Buell than anything else. Unfortunately for Mr Buell, I buy almost all parts and accessories from independent dealers and shops so there goes all the cross selling and 50% margins opportunities for the local shops to build the Buell "practice" upon. As for HD - watch out for the sales dropping dramatically as the WWD network is still very thin, the 100th anniversary sales were the only thing that kept them from bursting with the bubble in 2001/2002 (once everyone lost their discretionary income on the market) and the 2004 sportsters are going to kill resale of all the sportsters out there so people are going to be stuck with HD iron for the first time with little resale value. Add on top of that a dealer network that has a tremendous cost overhead and ... well you get the picture. | ||
| Crusty |
I find all the opinions above interesting; however, since I'm not a market analyst, I really don't have a valid opinion on how sales are going or if they're getting better or worse. Yesterday, I was in a dealership getting my free T-shirt forms stamped, and I couldn't decide if I should get a leftover S3(they had one on the floor) or an XB12. The S3 is the most beautiful motorcycle ever made. It's comfortable, and you can put hard saddlebags on it. It also has more passenger room. On the other hand, I could put the upper triple clamp and handlebars and footpegs from a Lightning on a Thunderfart, and it would be reasonably comfortable. The XB is beautiful in a different way, makes more power, and is more reliable. I'm really torn. Of course, I don't have the money yet, but I expect the settlement to happen some time this year. The bottom line is no matter which one I decide on, it will be a Buell. And in my own small way, I'll help Buells sales figures go up. | ||
| Bomber |
er, Dyna . . . .the nearest Duc dealer is far less than 90 mikes from you . .. . . more like 20, I'm thinkin | ||
| Bads1 |
Bomber Dyna's right.....sheesh I hate this 75 miles for me and Dyna is about 12 miles from me so he's actually in the ball park.Corse motorsports. | ||
| Lake_bueller |
Sorry but Bomber's right. The nearest Ducati dealer is Lake Country Powersports in Waukesha. Taken directly from Ducati.com. | ||
| Bads1 |
Hey Dennis I forgot all about those guys..sorry Bomber....Ha Ha Dyna.BTW hows the S1 coming??? | ||
| Nevco1 |
And don't try and BS a trade at Lake Country Powersports. The Sales manager used to own a Buell and won't touch one unless you just happen to feel the need to give it away. LOL They also have a premium selection of Honda's and Suzuki's too and will cut you a real deal!  | ||
| Lake_bueller |
Dana....slow process. The frame had a scuff area that was badly repainted. It's looking like I'll either paint or powder coat the frame. To have Classic Coatings prep and coat the frame will be about $200. But I also have access to a professional paint booth. That will cost me the time of stripping the frame and purchasing paint. That is really holding up the build. Once I decide on the fate of the frame, it shouldn't be too difficult to finish. The bodywork is in excellent condition. With any luck, I'll have it back on the road for the homecoming gig. Can you send me the name of the guy that did your paint? I have to get a tank repainted with some custom work. | ||
| Mikej |
Lake Country can be worked with and talked into something, but you have to have the miles to back up the talk. They've usually got a Buell tucked away in a corner someplace, and will usually come out to look at one parked at the curb even if you aren't there to try and sell it. They do usually have a wide selection of bikes to look at and compare, very multi-marque store. YMMV | ||
| Mikej |
Speaking of sales trends, did any of the Milwaukee-local folks happen to catch the Suburban Harley/Buell Sunday morning sales show on TV over the weekend? Just a little bit of a workaround to get around the Wisconsin no-Sunday-sales ruling perhaps? I caught the last 6 minutes of it and found it interesting and somewhat entertaining. | ||
| Nevco1 |
Mike...Di woke up to see a little bit of it. What was the Time, Format and where was it advertised? Understand they were even doing the "Come on Down" and the "Phones are Ringing" thing. Sounded like a Telethon so I went back to sleep. LOL What did ya buy??? |
