First of all I would like to wish everyone a good slide into 2017, and in the words of my hero Loddar Matthäus I wish you all a little bit lucky for the new year.
The term " win on Sunday sell on Monday" is relevant, I don`t expect to sell a new Aprilia every Monday after they win races but why else do manufacturers spend millions on such projects as Moto GP and Superbike World championships, of course part of it is further development , but a very large part of it is prestige and image, The problem with Aprilia is that dispite all of the sucess over the years they have never managed to use it properly to build up a sucessful image, The fact that
@twister13 has just written Today, that he first had the Tuono in the garage before he knew about Aprilia`s sporting achivements , this is ridiculos ,
As mentioned the ideas about a Tuono or RSV Cup with support from Aprilia or dealers, I think would be a great idea,
Also events along the lines of Ducati 4 you Track days should are more than worthwhile, The dealers should get involved in this sort of thing, with support from Aprilia, The dealers are the people who do the work with the customers, and these sort of events are a perfect opportuinity for the customers to improve contacts with the dealers.
Things like dealers grouping together , with support from Aprilia and organising winter events in southern europe, is also worth looking at.
The present event that is run, the Aprilia Power Days is unfortunately typical for the way things presently work by Aprilia,
We dealers get the information about the event at much too short notice, due to this we can`t get away to attend the events, due to the summer workload, we also don`t get enough time to infom the customers, and then if that is not enough, the event is a one off event and held in a South west corner of Germany in Baden Baden, what does the customer in Hamburg or Berlin do ??, it`s too far away for one day, The event needs to take place over period of lets say 10 -14 days at 4 Locations for example Baden Baden, Oscherleben, Bilster Berg and Brünn, this way we open the event to many more potential Buyers throughout the country
Another thing that needs to be spoken about is the use and misuse of Demonstrator Bikes,
At present we dealers get a small discount for our demo bikes with the condition that we have to keep the bikes for 90 Days and thats it, it does not matter if the bike has done 10 or 5000 Kilometers , this leads to dealers not using the bikes for demo purposes, but just registering them and putting the money in their pockets and not getting the bikes , as they should be on the road so that people can ride them, and in extreme cases sending the customers to other dealers to ride their bikes.
My suggestion is that we should have to order our demo bikes in a separate order for demo bikes, then we should get 3% more discount and ,180 days interest free wih the bank, but then we have to keep the bike a minimum of 6 months and at the end of the six months, the bike should have a minimum ( depending on model ) of 1000-1500 KM on the clock. and only after fullfilling these conditions , we get the demo bike discount,
wandering slightly off topic, to Moto Guzzi, it is a very similar problem, thats what makes me feel that it is a Piaggio problem in general, the whole Harley , BMW and Triumph world has been very sucessful over the last few years with a cool / Lifestyle/ Retro image that they have managed to associate with their bikes, All of the dealers that I know have been screaming for a 1000 ccm Guzzi as a Le Mans and Scrambler, why hasn`t it been built??? If their is a manufacturer in Europe that is predestined to building these kind of bikes and fueling this image, with all of the clothing merchendising , for gods sake guys , it is Moto Guzzi!!!!!
Their is so much potential in all of the Piaggio brands, but not enough happens with them .
