I know Moto Rapido had reduced the opening times of the parts department to Monday to Friday well over a year ago. Pretty sure it was earlier this year, the workshop did the same. Popped in this afternoon for a few bits and learned as of about 3 weeks ago, the sales department has followed suit. Andy
Unrelated, apart from being reminded by ‘saved’…and I have my coat ready.. Just off the A69, Haydon Bridge I think, there was a corner on the road and a sign that said ‘Jesus saves..’ unremarkable really, but, the smile came another 100yards along the road, some wise spark had placed another sign…’yes, but Gazza scores more goals’!
Looking at their financials, I'm not surprised. It looks like they've been flying close to the wind for quite some time.
It is what it is I guess, they will have the data to show when their busy periods are, along with all their overheads, etc, and I realise times have changed a fair bit since I started riding, when most folk went out to work Mon-Fri which meant Saturday was the only day to go to bike shops, look at bikes and buy spares (ordered over the phone in the week, etc) and other stuff, so a bike shop whose sales dept, and to a lesser extent, spares dept is closed on a Saturday, to me, is a bit peculiar. I for one would at least need to look at a bike before purchasing, and had a go on one to make sure it was what I expected. What a world we live in today.....
Surely the brand Ducati must take a dent with these closures. Surprised that Ducati UK aren’t taking an interest and trying to to support dealers- or is the motorcycle business so cut throat!
Yep, I went there on a Saturday once, and only one salesman and another bod was there. I haven’t been back since.
Not surprised. I wouldn’t be either. In fact I couldn’t do business with them as I can only do sat or Sunday for any purchasing etc. all my cars have been bought on those days or late in the evening during the week. Which MR don’t do either.
The decent ones with good staff, that go the extra mile will be. Any dealer closing on Saturdays, or offering limited services on a Saturday is idiotic. I can't remember which dealer it was now, but one I used to deal with would be closed on a Sunday and Monday, which makes far more sense than being closed on a Saturday.
totally agree, the likes of motorapido are just proving that all they care about is racing, but are forgetting that the entire business is built on the customer. the dealers need to be focussing on getting people in on Saturdays, all through summer, pop up food trucks, club meets, make it a plannned destination then get people talking about the bikes, it’s a ball ache but it works.
Smacks to me that the majority of their customers are retired and can visit any day. That in itself ought to be a warning that their customer base won't be spending money for many more years.
Dealers are their own worse enemies, many seems stuck in a pre-internet age. There's a reason why online sale are crushing the high street, it's a less traumatic experience, generally. Bought a new 20k+ bike from an Oxford based Ducati dealer, water pump went within a month, it took two months for the workshop to fit it in for repair (sales guy wouldn't help escalate the repair timeframe). Same dealer offers a clothing discount when you buy a bike, on picking the repaired bike up I thought why not take advantage of the clothing discount, at checkout seeing the un-discounted price ring up, I mention the discount, "Sorry Sir, that offer only lasts x days". Fine, they got 100% of nothing and an online seller got 80% of something. My point, buyers have options, lots of options, stay ahead of the game or fall behind.
Thank god I'm below average then at 50 You've only got to look at the Facebook posts from DOCUK etc to see that the demographic is heavily biased to the older motorcyclist and that there are very few young people getting involved. The new Supermotard would have been ideal for this but £12k for a youngster is a massive no-no. BTW Ducati Nottingham never opened on a Sunday which always appeared strange to me as "back in the day" most shops would close Monday's instead to help people part with their spare cash.
