George White Motorcycles

So what does the font say about GW? He has just bought out a local
dealer with 3 branches in Devon & Cornwall and its a company I have
had no previous dealings with. Looks good on paper and seems to have a
few bargains at the moment but what about attitude and after sales?


Mark

 

I can see them going down the pan in the same way that Carnells,
Motorcycle City and all the other multi-franchise/multi-site bike
dealers have gone.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Tourer, CBR600F-W racebike in the making, TS250C, RD400F
(somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

Fair point but is that because of their business model failing or
because they are a bunch of bastards.

Mark

 

Really, they've been around for 50 years why should they fold now?

 

Woolworths managed it.

Dixon Car Group, who owned Carnells, managed it.

Loads of other retailers of long standing have managed it, what makes
you think their length of time in business is relative to their chances
of not going bust





--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Tourer, CBR600F-W racebike in the making, TS250C, RD400F
(somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

For two possible reasons - if the government is going to increase taxes,
reduce expenditure across the board and simultaneously chuck a million
people on the dole then I'd say discretionary expenditure will shrink to
zero for an awful lot of people. Bye bye spending on motorbikes (and
lots of other things].

The second reason - and I'm guessing this is what Lozzo is getting at -
is that no one has managed to successfully create a nationwide brand for
selling and servicing motorbikes. The examples he quotes have all gone
bust largely because the much vaunted promises of VFM and quality of
service have never been delivered. It seems to me that successful
dealerships are local businesses which develop a market niche, a rapport
with their customers and a reputation for fair prices and good service.
You have to be exceptionally talented or have very good management
systems to carry that business model to a national level in a trade like
motorcycles sales and servicing.

I used Motorcycle City and they were highly variable and at times
downright awful. Same with Carnells. I ended up using local dealers
like Woodford Motorcycles or Lloyd Coopers [1] because they did what
they said they would, on time and at a good price. Their reputation was
clearly built on doing this.

[1] cue VAM saying they were shit.

 

Absolutely. Motorcycle City probably got closest. One problem is that
the actual volumes in bike retailing are very small indeed: roughly
one-tenth of the car market, for example.

Agree with all the above. Also, the bike trade is very cyclical: the
retail pattern we're seeing now is very similar to what it was a couple
of decades ago.

We get boom and bust very frequently. For many people, a car is a
necessity. A bike isn't, and it competes for disposable income with many
other things. Like sporting goods. And computers.

Your comments about good local dealers are right on the money. Bikes
need regular and frequent servicing. A typical car service interval
these days is 12,000 miles. Bike service intervals are half that, and
then there's the aftermarket parts (people tend to ding bikes more than
they do cars), accessories (apart from the real car enthusiasts, the
average motorcyclist simply doesn't buy accessories) and clothing
(people don't buy special clothing for driving their cars).

One reason why so many chains have come and gone is that the owners have
been blidned - usually at times of rising bike sales - by the prospect
of simply shifitng metal and ignored the service, clothing, parts and
accessories business which operates on much greater margins and should
really be the bread and butter of a good dealership.

It's no coincidence, I think, that the only (seemingly) successful chin
in the UK right now is Hein Gericke, which isn't actually involved in
moving metal.

I'd be interested to hear Lozzo's take on this.

 

Oops. That should be 'average motorist'.....

 

Well, in the SW, Riders seem to be doing okay. However, they only have 3
branches and stick to non-Jap franchises. Might've bit off more they can
chew by opening a BMW franchise in Cardiff. Many have tried, none lasted
more than a couple of years.

Depends. Carnell/M&P etc took on too much debt and then went seeking
short term profit to service the debt, ignoring quality of service and
fleecing customers with shonky warranties and service contracts. They
paid crap wages and you never saw the same staff if you went back 2
months later. Hopefully GW will look to the long game and have the
capital to ride out the lean times.

 

The Older Gentleman wrote:

I agree completely with everything both you and Paul have said. It
really is a niche market and a seasonal one at that, therefore it takes
a rather special dealership or a smaller more customer orientated
business to survive through the leaner months. Discounting bikes
through the floor when you have huge overheads doesn't pay the bills,
especially when you have customers moving to other smaller dealers to
have their servicing done.

Bike shops rely on service depts and clothing to make a real profit,
the bikes don't really make a huge amount for any of them. The likes of
Carnells could only bring in servicing work by selling servicing deals
with the bike, which is something a lot of new riders got caught out
with when they went pop. Most people bought their bike from Carnells
then went somewhere else to get it serviced for a couple of reasons; a)
they lived too far away and travelled to buy the bike cheap, and b)
they had a bad experience of Carnell's pitiful aftersales service so
went elsewhere.

Carnells had to bring their own range of Riossi clothing out to keep
clothing sales profitable - their efforts at selling Dainese and
A/stars failed as the buyers of what was then top quality kit didn't
want to buy it from what looked like a bike supermarket, they wanted a
specialist to sell them it. In winter time sales were down through the
floor because their business model didn't appeal to the year round
motorcyclist, but they still had huge sites to keep running. Even the
sales bonus available on each bike wasn't enough to call a profit, so
things got very tough for them. In the end it was Dixon's parent
company that took them down, but the writing was on the wall for
Carnell/City a long time before that.

Gericke in the UK have got it sussed - forget the bikes, specialise in
everything else. Staff costs are lower, rents are lower, you can cater
for a wider range of customers even in winter when you have some of the
best wet/cold weather gear at affordable prices and decent quality
summer clothing always in stock.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Tourer, CBR600F-W racebike in the making, TS250C, RD400F
(somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

Experience at dealing with the vagaries of the marketplace for 50 years?

 

Or, as in the case of my Honda Civic, 50,000 miles between oil changes

 

.....ignoring the rest of the typos. Forgetting LTSTPRU, for a moment,
you really need a decent sub-ed...

 

Nah, that means we'd be able to understand his posts.

 

Troo

 

On the face of it though, this is Good News for anyone who does
servicing, especially in today's leisure-oriented market.

 

Except that the George White of now is very different to the George
White of 50 years ago.

 

TBQH, it doesn't really matter who's name is over the door.

The (ex) Motorcycle City in Farnborough has had at least 3 names over
it since i've been there, but it's always in the same location,
churning out the same stuff.

Paul.

 

Impressively out-tat'ted by the pound shops ...

Paul.

 

I had experience of their pitiful pre-sales service too. And
afterwards when they morphed into Infinity

I went elsewhere after they had really, really crap trade in values
for the Blackbird and CCM. I sold one via a dealer (trade in for the
12R) and the other via Bike-Trader.

I didn't like their sales techniques, but they did have good discount
deals on kit occasionally ..

Paul.