We all know that more brick & mortar businesses can advantageously replace part of their showroom square feet by a bigger and better internet presence. If clients don’t walk in, go to them where they are, wherever they are. Logically, Rossmeyer’s Harley-Davidson, overwhelmed by the number of used bikes they took in trade- in and repos on unpaid loans (at any time they state that they have 500 used bikes in stock), is moving its sales force front of the computer screen. Mike Watts, internet sales manager at Rossmeyer’s state that the company will host 24-hour live vide auction on a monthly basis (the 1st one happened 2 weeks ago).
In a statement he made to the Daytona News Journal I noticed that Mike Watts made 2 mistakes by stating 1- “That we hope to change the way people buy used motorcycles”. Really? I think it’s all the way around. It’s consumers who changed the way businesses sell their ware. Rossmeyer’s, like others, just try to adapt. Never heard of eBay? 2- “That their website(s) have 1 million of hits”. Who cares the number of hits? A hit is not a visit to a website but the number of graphics & pictures downloaded when you open any internet page. If you open a page with 40 graphics or images, it’s 41 hits (one hit for the page + 40 hits for the images). But still only 1 visitor. Multiply by the number of pages visited by the same person and you have a ton of hits for still only 1 visit. Mike, the only important thing is the number of unique visitors, the number of pages visuted and the time spent on each page. Among other things, the reason why the first online auction was not a success is because of poor announcement and poor internet traffic for a company the size of Rossmeyer’s (I checked). It’s what Rossmeyer’s should work on first. Rossmeyer’s Harley-Davidson.
It is pretty sad that Corporations and Internet Sales are the way to get the New Breed of Bikers into a Harley ! I thought that by walking in to your local Harley Davidson Dealership with a smile and some Good conversation and a Few Bike Stories were the way I bought a Harley Davidson the first time. I was not sold on looking at Harley’s out there riding down the Highway, when I could create a dust storm around that Harley Dood to the tune of making him invisible to me in my rear view mirrors. I s He was not upset or concerned that I just smoked Him ! I attended some Bike Shows and was still drawn to other Bike Manufacturers because of the Innovations and the desire to have the Fastest and newest Bike out there. You see Harley Davidson was not concered about changes every year to their Bikes. You see, only when I went down to my Local Dealer and Visited, I understood and learned that Ownership of a Harley wasn’t about a Bike, It was about a WAY OF LIFE ! I just cant seem to understand that owning a Harley and Living the Life of Riding a Harley will be able to be duplicated by Internet < auction Selling.
HITS!
I hate it when someone says “we get a million hits a day”. That phrase “hits” is used to mislead the general public that a specific site is powerful. Total bullshit. When the internet first started the word hits got tagged with visitors to a website and is still being used today, and is a misleading claim. As mentioned above one visitor can create 40 hits the second they enter a home page on any website. If they leave the site two seconds later the 40 hits is tell registered. Unique visitors is the key to success.
The Rossmeyer internet online action has been in the works for a couple years now and glad to hear it is moving forward. Unfortunately they need a ratio of 1000 online visitors for each bike they expect to sell at the time of the auction. You got to have BikerDATA!
Hey Bigalyts you said it. What happened to the days when a guy would go to a dance and try to hook up with a nice girl. Yes they have replaced this also on line dating seems like it works for some. When we no longer go to a Motorcycle shop to make our purchase we really miss the large picture as Bigalyts has stated. Traffic is way down at your local Motorcycle Dealer same goes for Traffic at the local Dance hall. When your Local Motorcycle Dealer is no longer in business your interest will slowly start to go away and all you will have is On-Line viewing for your Fun. Try to have your flat rear tire repaired on line and what about a Sunday when your Battery is no good I think it would be hard to pull one out of the E-Bay Auction site.
We all know that 500 Used Motorcycles is a lot of inventory and I would wonder what I would do if that was on my shoulders. I would imagine that E-Bay would be where I would also go. First thing 500 Motorcycle is way to much inventory for any one even the largest to have.
If you are looking for a used Harley-Davidson try your local dealer and see what he has to offer come by have a conversation with a real person and above all get to Know them. Gary Bang