Friday, August 8, 2008

Smaller Legit Scooter Companies

As we all know, there are a lot of smaller motor scooter companies emerging, which is good for the consumer and dealer because it brings more competition to the manufacturers. However, there are not very many that I would encourage anyone to buy. Some of the better smaller brands are Genuine, Lambretta (been around forever, but has new image), EagleCraft, TN'G. These guys are much more business savvy than the other emerging motor scooter companies, which is an excellent start. However, I have heard many TN'G dealers are dropping the line due to lack of support by corporate. I have not heard any complaints about Genuine, Lambretta and EagleCraft.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Online Sales of Motor Scooters

Okay, so I have decided that I had to make an entry about manufacturers and distributors that sell their scooters online. I do not understand why anybody, whether a consumer or dealer, would purchase a scooter company's brand that is sold or ever has been sold online. These companies include Tank, Vento, Lance, CF Moto, Qlink, Ricardo, Roketa, Fly scooters, ZNEN and many more motor scooter companies. These companies are just whoring out their product in any distribution channel possible. I mean you go to BigAss Motors in Northridge to get your Lance Milan scooter for $2,000. Then you go online and can get it for $1,000 shipped to your door. So, let's see, first of all, why would the dealer ever purchase the scooter from Lance Powersports when they are allowing another dealer to sell online who does not have any overhead, nor can service the scooter that supposively comes with a one year warranty on parts & labor, and they are selling it for half the cost (seems like business 101- Distribution Conflict). So let's see, the dealer is getting screwed because someone else is selling the same product for half the cost, the brand he is selling is getting a terrible image (Lance scooters in this case), he ends up fixing the guys scooter that bought it from another dealer online who made the money for doing no work, the customer that paid $2,000 for the same scooter finds the same Lance model online for $1,000 and gets pissed at the dealer, etc., etc. From the customer's point of view, they are also screwed whether they buy the scooter online or in a dealership. If they buy it online, they get a good price and the scooter comes with a one year warranty on parts & labor, but hard to get virtual service for your scooter, so you cannot get it serviced. It probably arrived broken and hopefully you know how to inspect it because having the throttle stick at 60 MPH and having the brakes lock up or not work (which are all current complaints) are not very fun. After you crash and get hurt, the extra $1,000 for the scooter that has been inspected by certified technician does not seem so bad. If you buy the Lance Powersports scooter from a dealership, as soon as you purchase it, it loses over $1,000 in value (50%) because the guy that bought his on the internet is not going to get what he paid for it when he sells it on craigslist, and yours is the same Lance brand that he has. So, it actually ends up costing you more money to buy a scooter brand, like Lance Powersports, that sells its scooters online. If you look at the entire cycle, the Lance Scooter will cost you more money. You may pay less for it at first, but your motor scooter will lose so much value at the end, that you would have been better off buying a Honda, Yamaha, EagleCraft, Genuine, TN'G, etc. (Notice how I did not say you need a Vespa or Piaggio because we are talking economical). I reccomend you start thinking the entire cycle. It seems people think of all scooters as disposable. That would be the same as me buying a new Ford Taurus for $13,000 over a Honda Civic for $17,000. Yes, the Civic is $4,000 more initially. But, when I went to sell it, I would get $8,000 for the Taurus and $15,000 for the Civic. I would lose $5,000 if I bought the Taurus and only $2,000 if I bought the Civic. That means I would have lost $3,000 more for the the Taurus than if I bought the Civic. There may be more to come on this topic because people need to start thinking! Do not just worry about the quality and initial cost of your scooter. Worry about the Net Present Value of each because Lance, Vento, Qlink, CF Moto, etc. do not make logical sense to buy.