Story on my dealer closing

[truck]

http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-allentown-crossroads-harley-davidson-closing-20111017,0,4071169.story

[2glides]

What a Shame!!!  WE have a plant in Hamburg that I visit every couple of months and sometimes would stop in at this dealership. Another one bites the dust! It's happenoing everywhere......Two local dealers here in New England are closing their sister stores and going back to one location. I was talking to the owner of our local dealership, and she told me that she has lost 15% revenue a year for the last 3 years........can't keep that up for too long.

2Glides

[JimB]

Often when a Dealer closes & leaves a large region without one, that means more business for the local Indy Shop for tires, oil & such. Its the silver lining in the thunder cloud effect. So support your local Indy Shop if you can.

[Jeffd]

Hope and change baby Hope and change.

[HogMike]

Hope and change baby Hope and change.

Geez, now you sound like my brother!!
It's all Bush's fault, you know!

[Jeffd]

Hope and change baby Hope and change.

Geez, now you sound like my brother!!
It's all Bush's fault, you know!

Hopefully he is wanting change this time around LOL.

[RK101]

Darned shame I remember when they were in there old store. Think it's one of them Yammahookie dealershiips now. Seems like Harley wanted them to open these boutique stores and now they can't afford to pay the expenses it takes to keep them open. Now they have to lay there long time employees off with no thought of ever returning to work. That and now the owners of these bikes have to go miles from there original dealership to get any of there warranty work done. Isn't that just dandy for there employees and consumers.
Kind of makes you want to ask yourself that if I buy a new bike today is the dealer going to be here 6 months to a year from now to take care of my needs should something happen to my bike.

[Big Cahuna]

[quote author=RK101 link=topic
"Kind of makes you want to ask yourself that if I buy a new bike today is the dealer going to be here 6 months to a year from now to take care of my needs should something happen to my bike".
Funny that you said that. I bought my bike used from the dealer that sponcers our Hog group, in Sept. of last year. They closed the doors on April the 15th of this year. They quoted the bad economy as well as other excuses. But fail to mention that their overcharging for parts and service, was one of the reasons they folded up.,,

[Ultrashovel]

Four or five HD deaershps have gone T.U. in the greater Sacrmento area in the past three years. This is not to mention some 15 restaurants, and Lord only knows how many other small businesses all along nearly every street you may drive down. It's getting pretty bad.

[johncr]

Hmmmm...

Harley-Davidson earnings soar

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2011/10/18/harley-davidson-earnings-soar.html

[PoorUB]

Considering that HD sales are down to 60% of what they were in 2007 I don't see dealer closings an issue. The article said that 64 out of 650 dealers have closed compared to 2002. I am surprised there is not more dealers closed than this. Sales drop, not everyone survives, just the way it is. Only the healthy, profitable dealers will be around.

[NorCal Dog]

lots of "dealer"s have closed down around my area, 2 in Novato, one in Corte Madera, one in Vallejo

ya know, i'm a musician also, & used to be a lot of brick & mortar music shops around.

the smart ones are still in business,, the ones that still had the HD "dealer"ship mentality of doing business, in this economy & in this age of one clic shopping on the internet,, have all closed down also

the smart music shops that are still going strong, even in this economy, have all kinds of crap hanging on the walls with with msrp pricing on the tags, to which all the noobs walk in, grab what they want, walk up to the register & pay that price< ( just like your local,, or now,, long distance "dealer" ) but if you do a lot of biz with the dealer,,, all you gotta say  at the register is,,, hook me up,, you can do a better price than that,,, & they do,, if you just simply ask

but better than that THEY PRICE MATCH LEGIT INTERNET PRICES,,, what a friggin concept,, as they would rather lose a bit of their profits on a sale than lose a sale altogether,,, & to that i say you guys rock 

the mothership & "dealer"s would rather milk you dry in this economy & get MAXIMUM PROFIT on one sale,, than cut you a deal, & gain a parts customer for life 

could really care less if they shut 'em down,,,, they're their own worst enemy

edit,, & i should mention,, there's numerous indy shops around for service issues

[gryphon]

You can't build a long term customer base on a product that temporarily becomes a fad. For years the vast majority of Harley riders had been riding for a while before they bought their first Harley. The bike they had dreamed about and would never part with (though it may change over the years). Suddenly it became a big fad and a status symbol to own one. Very fashionable. Thousands were sold to buyers who really weren't into bikes at all. Stores and the dealership base grew tremendously. Dealerships became boutiques and overhead went up. Not a problem when you sold bikes to a bunch or guys who then increased the sale by 25% with chrome and all that expensive freakin leather. Suddenly the fad starts dying out (remember beanie babbies) and there's thousands of very low milage used bikes with tons of foo foo goodies just sitting idle with For Sale signs around them. Dealerships suddenly have bikes sitting on the floor that they can't sell. Guys are still shopping but with so many good used bikes the new bike markets going to take a while to recover. Sadly, even some of the shops that have been great places to do business with for lots of years have had to suffer. Many had to move out of their old locations to build their new boutique and took a major increase in overhead. I do agree that this is going to benefit many of the Indy's. The slowdown/shutdown is industry wide. Lots of semi custom makers have gone belly up. As have a lot of the custom foo foo makers who were selling their billet oil gauge brackets for $300+. Once the fad was over it was just a matter of time. Unfortunately the recession hit at the same time so it's a double whammy. But even without the recession it was going to happen.

[boooby1744]

Me and the ol' lady went for a ride saturday. On the way home we decided to stop at nyc H-D open house,it was about 245pm.Leftover food,no water,coffee soda etc,seemed like just another day,nothing special.What a joke;that's what you get when you sell a dealership to a non american who onle sees $$$$ and not people or product.No wonder there is a constant turnover of employees.......

[limitedlou]

. They quoted the bad economy as well as other excuses. But fail to mention that their overcharging for parts and service, was one of the reasons they folded up.,,
[/quote]

Alot of Dealers like you said deserve to close up. And Harley isn't on my good list with not takeing care of  a wheel under the TWO YEAR warranty.. Me buy another NEW HARLEY ,, I don't think so...

[Lew]

Too many sharks in the water will end up starving..

Lew

[YFOPOS1]

Unfortunately  its all about the "mighty buck" I mean really """How much is enough""" ??

Its too bad everybody and I mean everybody would boycott every sports event , bike rallies , etc etc for one year ..
To show that we are fed up with paying these asinine prices !!! 

There is no such thing as " customer service anymore "  on any level..

Their attitude was "you don't like the price? Get out of the way there are 50 in line that will pay it"
Guess what not anymore and some found out the hard way.

[gryphon]

For the most part it's always been that way. Not necessarily from all the dealers but the company itself was never going to win many customer service awards. Back in the day guys used to fly their wings upsidedown in protest. Used to say " love the bikes but hate the company".