Posts
205
Joined
12/28/2011
Location
NH
US
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 4:41pm
I know the site is down and they lquidated their assets...but why? They grew so fast and their numbers were reaching close to 10 million in annual sales. Does anyone know the nitty gritty of what went down?
Very interesting situation IMO
Very interesting situation IMO
motocorossgiant.com and btopsorts.com they support the sx teams
I just found the whole loco thing interesting is all.
The Shop
Free shipping: VITALMX
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Not to mention overhead and more.
Add into the mix the floundering economy, even though motorcycles has been coming back, disposable income has been weak.
and someone mentioned sponsoring teams, Loco did sponsor the GUS privateer effort, though I have no idea if they paid their bill or not
If you arent receiving your common aftermarket parts that come from parts unlimited or tucker rocky next day from your shop, you need to find a different one because they are choosing not to do daily orders. Ask them what there minimum order is (usually $50) and order that amount and you will have it in a day free shipping! Motosport is $99 minimum and others are around the same if not higher I believe
Try to find a moto specific shop in your area, maybe they wont sell new models....but will probably have a clutch lever for a crf250 or a top end gasket set for a kx250f if you know what I mean.
Instead of complaining about what isnt in stock, be proactive and speak with the parts manager about how much it would mean if they started stocking some motocross stuff. Unfortunately shops have given up on motocross because 9 times out of 10 a MX customer will call for a price, complain they found it on motosport for $3 cheaper, and hang up the phone.
Again this is not a LOCAL v. ONLINE debate thread. I was purely interested in hearing how David Scilabro and the rest behind LOCO-X inc could drive a inc500 multi million dollar company into liquidation, all in a matter of months. I guess I just find things like that interesting.
So if you want your shop to stay in business, youre doing them no favors by buying from them if you are only paying cost plus.
How do I know this? I took over a struggling performance shop. And very quickly learned that 15% of our 30% retail markup was eaten up by the cost of doing business (shipping, electricity, the phone bill, etc). Each and every racer that I put on a cost plus 15% deal was pissed. They wanted the shit for actual cost. I told them that I would actually be losing money if I did that. They didnt believe me....so I fired them. Yep, you heard me right. My motto for the first 2 months was "fire the existing customer base".
I went after a entirely new demographic. The owner was pissed, worried, and thought I was going to finish his shop.
9 months later I'd put about 250K profit into his pockets.
My local shop is awesome. They can get me anything I need (OEM or aftermarket) within 1-3 days and I don't have to pay shipping costs.
If you want to make a hundred grand a year in profit you'd better be selling close to a million and have very little overhead. True story.
Pit Row
Congrats on your $250,000 profit if that is what you achieved for the shop you were/are employed at, but in most cases that does not happen. Most shops aren't even doing more than 100,000 in aftermarket parts sales to begin with. That is not rumor, that is fact...atleast in my area.
15 off retail puts a retailers profit at just 15 over dealer cost. Thus no real profit. Thus a waste of time. Which is why I gladly let them go to an online retailer. While some online retailers have excellent customer service on the ordering/shipping sides of things...they cannot match a shop when it comes to ease of returns, dealing with a mfg, or installation assistance.
And yes, most shops don't do so well. Getting the profit we did was a result of me actually sleeping in my office most weekdays due to 18 hr workdays for the first three months and reckless marketing on my part.
For those who wonder why a shop doesn't go mail-order....a shops profit is in its service dept.
http://www.motosport.com/dirtbike/search/?words=clearance&sort=Price&li…
Now obviously individual experiences will vary, but here is how I see it.
While we appreciate online retailers and their contribution to the industry, we all see the value in the local shop and people need to support the local shop. As said above, the money in a shop is not made in parts, accessories or even bike sales, it's service, but if these dealers have to live on service alone, they'd fail. The local shop provides an X value, in that it gives you a place to buy your motorcycle, to try on a new helmet, try a new pair of boots and ask the service guy a question about how to fix something.
Have you ever wondered why the local dealer "isn't into MX?" That might not entirely be the dealer's fault. If no one comes in or the mx market is small, is it hard to blame the dealer for focusing more on street and ATV/UTV? I understand, if they had more moto, they'd get more moto people...but that's a two-way street. The other problem with moto isn't "moto" itself, it's racers in general. Racers always want, wait, scratch that, DEMAND a discount and want to buy everything at 15% above cost or whatever. I am telling you as a manufacturer, people are not making as much as people think. People have this idea that the shop owners are all going home to their 35,000sf castle in their Ferrari's...yeah, that's not happening. As said earlier, dealer is likely making 30-40% mark-up, and they have to pay rent/mortgage, insurance, floor planning, payroll, phone, electric and more...expecting them to do that on a margin less than that is unreasonable. You may pay a little more, but you get a little more for your money, such as face to face service, employing people locally, supporting a local business and the ability to return something or get face-to-face advice when you have a problem.
Lastly, I get a lot of "My local dealer doesn't carry it." I am here to tell you and any dealers reading this, it is the dealer's job to get you what you want, not sell you what they want. Every dealer is ordering from one of the major distributors as well as some of the medium size distributors. If you walk in and say you want (for example) Bel-Ray and their reply is "we have Maxima," tell them to order it, that's their job. It's unreasonable to expect every shop to carry every brand of oil....Maxima, Bel-Ray, Panolin, Motorex, Motul, Silkolene and on and on...there is no way to carry it all, and there is no reason that they can't get you what you want. Tell them, it's their job to get you what you want, not sell you what they want to sell you.
Lastly, one of the most fucked up things people do to dealers and why many have stopped carrying many accessories, is people who come in, try something on to get their size and then buy it online. That's just wrong.
So "wrong" can fall on both sides when it comes to local dealers.
Most of the money dealers make is on street bikes anyways and you can test ride those unlike dirt bikes. For me, it's just not practical to buy from dealers. Not only are they too expensive, but I just don't have the time to drive to a dealer twice to get a part that's not in stock anyways. I used to buy OEM parts from dealers, but they stopped carrying parts, so why should I go there, if they have to order the damn part anyways. Also, as someone mentioned, you have to put up with bad attitude tattooed, nose ringed, ear disced punks to get your parts.
If the manufacturers truly cared about the local dealers, why dothey allow online companies to sell OEM parts?
Bottom line, things change, you just have to adapt to it, or go out of business.
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