Local dealer gives up...

V

Vacant Possession

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I dropped in to see my local dealer & friend, Richard of CMW Motorcycles who are no longer Ducati dealers.

I know this is about as far south as you can get without nipping over to Boulogne so relevance is not good for DUN, but his reasons are not good.

His shop is an eclectic mix of new & used bikes and a workshop you can walk into and talk with the mechanics. Ducati wanted him to spend £200-300K turning it into the Apple Store Cathedral of motorcycles, with a particular glassy look & feel. It is a shop in the centre of town, long & thin and not conducive to Ducati's specifications.

RIP Ducati Chichester.
 
Yeah, it's probably the Audi corporate influence. I like Audis and currently have an A6, but being a Yorkshireman it annoys me intensely every time I visit the local dealer's Bauhaus Clinic to get it serviced and pay way over the odds to support their hugely expensive showroom overheads. Sorry, when I say showroom I should in Audi-speak say "Terminal" as we've just got a new "Terminal" in Cheltenham....
They did the same thing with Skoda. The dealers were mainly family owned small businesses who understood their customer base - but they didn't fit with the VAG culture - so now they're all being swallowed up by Blade and the like.

Don't get me started on Dealers....
 
It's been like this long before Audi bought Ducati. It seems to vary from country to country, with Ducati UK being more extreme than some other European countries, but in general Ducati prefer "solus" dealers - i.e. a dealer that only sells one brand... theirs!

There is obviously an existing base of dealers and it's a shame they are trying to retrospectively apply the same criteria to them as to people starting a new dealership.

It is something from the car world, but as far back as the 80s I can remember the interior of all Ford dealers being the same, now all the german brands and most others have a totally uniform look.

Makes starting a dealership a (more) expensive business as well.
 
bloody hell .....was my local dealer when i used to live in the witterings. bought my first 748 from them and even now when i am in the area i would pop in and they are good folk def will be missed as i will have no reason to pop in.....sad day
 
Same happened to a couple of long established Triumph dealers :mad:

but I see CMW are taking on Aprillia/Moto Guzzi - that may well be enough to make them give up all together :lol2: actually its nice to see an enthusiastic dealer taking those on, as recently its been multi franchise pile 'em high dealers doing so who dont neccessarily have the experience/expertise to deal with non-japanese marques and their 'character' ;)
 
I dont think its Audi
I have a S3 which went in for its 20k service last week which included a full oil and brake fluid change for £180.00 OK its a lot of money but you can pay £50 for 5 ltre of mobil 1 in Halfords

Vacant :-) whats the Ducati dealer in Worthing ? he used to be Sh*t hot on bevels and racing bevels ?
 
Another problem all dealers face is the on line challenge. Shops are expensive. I have several friends who have shops. I remember one who said ages ago he stocked AGV lids.
He had to keep 10 models, 6 different colours of of each and in theory 6 sizes of each option. that is 10 x 6 x 6= 360 lids to stock the range. Of course he couldn't do that but he did keep 80 odd at £6000. ? that is a huge amount of money tied up in just one item and make of stock when people would come in, try on, make sure it fits nicely and then buy the cheapest available on the Net. This guy wasn't competing with other dealers in his area or even the south, he was competing with every dealer in the world.
The problem with bikes is Ebay ! there are hundreds of Ducati's available to private buyers on Ebay at prices dealers cant match. I don't know what the answer is but its a sign of the times and the future People expect to click and have it delivered. Some people cant even be arsed to go to the super market once a week !!
 
ducatipaddy said:
Snip... Vacant :-) whats the Ducati dealer in Worthing ? he used to be Sh*t hot on bevels and racing bevels ?
Click to expand...

I think you mean Alf's Motorcycles in Worthing.

Alf is a top man and worked as part of Pietro's racing team way back when. He has his secret Ducati 'den' behind the main dealership although den doesn't adequately describe a building with it's own rolling road etc.,

Alf has done work on my bike before I tore it down for its rebuild.
 
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