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George white stores in administration

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LordShaftesbu...
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PostPosted: 11:47 - 13 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rogerborg wrote:

My local dealers are (reportedly) a cower of shunts

Who are they, just out of interest?
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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 00:38 - 14 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

junglejim wrote:
but good riddance to GW's as far as I'm concerned


Why, whats the difference between GW's in the bike world and Tescos in the grocery world. I bet your missus doesn't do all her shopping at Ali's corner shop cause he's too damn expensive. She goes to tescos who force suppliers to sell to them at knock down prices so they can under cut everyone.

Bet you wouldn't say 'good riddance' to Tescos.
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WindyMiller
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PostPosted: 19:31 - 24 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

They're... oh, no they aren't.

https://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/General-news/2012/February/feb2412-george-white-puts-stick-online-after-folding/
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Rogerborg
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PostPosted: 21:00 - 24 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh my, and another one bites the dust. Sad
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Recluso
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PostPosted: 21:43 - 24 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

That sucks, was thinking of checking them out as they're not far from me Sad
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defblade
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PostPosted: 07:37 - 28 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

junglejim wrote:
as is the ever increasing price of fuel


My bike saves me about £750 a year over doing the same miles in the car... and that's after paying for the petrol. So it more than pays for all it's own running costs Smile Higher petrol prices will only put more people on bikes Smile
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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 15:32 - 28 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

junglejim wrote:


That presupposes that most people buy bikes as a practical means of transport.
If what I've read is true, biking for most is largely a hobby, and of course in the current financial climate, these are the first things to get sacrificed.
If biking was the answer to all the woe's of the world, then bike shops would be raking it in now, but the fact is, they are not.


My missus has a car and a bike but she wouldn't even dream of using the bike to commute the 5 miles it is for her to go to work.

She can't be bothered putting the gear on and changing at work, unlocking the bike from its chains, moving the car to get it out of the garage, getting wet etc. etc.

Most car drivers think like that and the only way they will ever go on a bike/moped is if the car becomes prohibitively expensive. In that respect I don't think the bike will ever become the commuting tool of choice unless you are a hobby biker as well.
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Kickstart
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PostPosted: 16:34 - 28 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

junglejim wrote:
Biking enjoyed a huge popularity boom in the late 80's into the 90's, but started to tail off by 2000.


It was dead and getting deader in the late 1980s. Started to come back to life in the mid 1990s.

All the best

Keith
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LordShaftesbu...
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PostPosted: 17:38 - 28 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

Polarbear wrote:
Most car drivers think like that and the only way they will ever go on a bike/moped is if the car becomes prohibitively expensive. In that respect I don't think the bike will ever become the commuting tool of choice unless you are a hobby biker as well.

Plus it will become virtually impossible to get a licence. Almost everybody already has a car licence, but not many people can switch to a bike without massive expense and hoop jumping. I can't see that situation getting better, especially as even bikers think there should be yet more hoops to jump through.
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Kickstart
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PostPosted: 17:39 - 28 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

junglejim wrote:

Wrong.
Biking did go through a dead phase in the 80's but by the late 80's it was coming back big style.
By the early 90's every man woman and their dog wanted a bike, spurred on by the publically aclaimed Fireblade and of course Ducati 916.


Late 1980s it was still pretty screwed. Can't find registration figures that far back, but figures for imports in 1000s for mopeds and motorcycles, with the totals (from MCIA):-

1986 27.5 79.3 = 106.8
1987 24.7 74.1 = 98.8
1988 25.5 90.6 = 116.1
1989 15.1 95.7 = 110.8
1990 21.2 107.6 = 128.8
1991 9.8 77.5 = 87.3
1992 6.4 60.9 = 67.3
1993 7.3 60.6 = 67.9
1994 6.4 49.4 = 55.8
1995 6.1 60.4 = 66.5
1996 10.6 84.5 = 95.1
1997 16.1 116.1 = 132.2
1998 35.2 138.4 173.6
1999 49.5 160.4 = 209.9
2000 46.8 170.0 = 216.8
2001 38.0 139.2 = 177.2
2002 39.7 134.9 = 174.6
2003 77.4 140.3 = 217.7
2004 104.3 151.0 = 255.3
2005 167.3 161.2 = 321.5
2006 75.1 136.2 = 211.3
2007 38.3 143.7 = 182
2008 32.5 151.1 = 183.6
2009 17.6 114.4 = 132
2010 17.9 127.2 = 145.1

A bit worse than that as production was pretty minimal as well back then (UK production of bikes in 1990 was 900, peaking at over 38000 in 2006 but down to 23400 in 2010).

Minor peak in 1990 (still less than the recent 2009 low point) with sales dropping as we went into recession around then. But it was well into the 1990s when things picked up properly again, which possibly is related to 916 (1994).

All the best

Keith
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Musketeer
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PostPosted: 18:30 - 28 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

Compared to pre-2007 I feel much poorer, because everything seems to be much more expensive and my wages don't keep up with the inflation. Petrol cost 30% more than back then. I experienced recent 20% gas/electricity hikes. I had to start shopping in Aldi/Lidl instead of Tesco/Sainsburys to cope with price increases. Insurance prices have gone up even though the number of my NCD is growing. Tax disc for my car cost me 20-30 quid more every year (245 currently), tax discs for bike seem to be at reasonable level but I wonder how long before the government decide to hit bikers too.

There is not a lot of money left to buy a newer car or bike. And obtaining credit is almost impossible for many.
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Kickstart
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PostPosted: 19:23 - 28 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi

As said they came from the MCIA, specifically this doc. They are the figures for the imports of bikes over those years (split between mopeds and motorcycles, and added together).

Yes there was a minor peak in 1990, but the figures were still pathetically low, falling even further through the early 1990s (low point for imports being 1994).

All the best

Keith
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Kickstart
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PostPosted: 00:26 - 29 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

junglejim wrote:

Let's not forget that the figures quoted, I suspect, are new bike sales.
That's not telling the whole story.


They are imports (including 2nd hand imports, which rocketed in the mid 1990s), not just new sales.

All the best

Keith
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Rogerborg
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PostPosted: 10:28 - 29 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can suggest a possible explanation for how you could both be right.

As sales began to rise, existing dealers would be beating customers off with a rusty chain, thus you're right about that dealer.

But for national sales to rise, it would take some time for that demand to spill over and create new dealers who could service it. So Keith is also right about the national picture lagging behind the surging sales at any individual dealer.

For my next trick, I'm going to sort out that little spat in Palestine.
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Kickstart
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PostPosted: 11:21 - 29 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

junglejim wrote:

As I said.
Statistics don't always tell the whole story.
Rolling Eyes


Very true, and I can't find the registration stats hence had to make do with the figures for imports.

My point is that in the late 1980s sales were pretty pathetic (especially compared to the early 1980s), and far from being a huge popularity boom from the late 1980s in into the 1990s tailing off around 2000, it took until the mid 1990s for things to pick up with things peaking well after 2000 (although mopeds distorted that even more).

I remember that until the mid 1990s, anyone having a bike or even anyone showing any interest in them at places I worked was a rarity.

All the best

Keith
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Kickstart
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PostPosted: 13:14 - 29 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

junglejim wrote:

Well whatever.
Fact is that a lot of dealers who survived at least two previous recessions (including George Whites), have recently fallen victim to the current climate, which indicates to me that something very different is going on now.


I don't actually remember George Whites from more than about a decade ago. Sure they were around, but to my knowledge no more than a normal local decent size dealers. What seems to have killed them isn't lack of sales (they sold a hell of a lot), rather trying to survive on minimal unit profits and bonuses from massive sales. If the calculations are slightly wrong the bonuses don't appear and the losses are massive. Suspect they would have suffered exactly the same fate if they had used the same tactics 20 years ago.

Dealers go bust regularly. In 1987 / 88 I lived in Portsmouth. One road there used to have a load of dealers which pretty much all closed down, just leaving the Portsmouth Honda Centre (think that landed up as a Motorcycle City branch in the end, think it closed entirely when they gave up) and a small shop for Rafferty Newman. After that I moved to Nottingham, again a place that lost a load of its dealers around then.

junglejim wrote:
Which is completely different to my recollection so maybe it was a regional thing


Quite possible. Bikes were certainly popular in Northern Ireland around the late 1980s for example, although there they had a few advantages. Car insurance was hideously expensive (~4 times the mainland rates) while for bikes they missed out on the 9kW / 125cc learner law (if you could afford the insurance you could have a TZR250 as a learner), which was widely blamed for destroying the UK bike market in the early 1980s.

Moving back to the mainland the areas I spent a load of time in were Winchester, Portsmouth, Nottingham, Mansfield and Derby before moving over to Stafford. In all those places bike sales were pretty dead (there were 2 main dealers in Stafford when I moved here, the Kawasaki one closed shortly afterwards), with dealers numbers limited or closing and interest in bikes was pretty dead. It did seem to pick up in the mid 1990s, with in the early 2000s in a small team of ~15 people at work I landed up with 2~3 wanting to get into bikes (and 2 passing their tests).

All the best

Keith
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Rogerborg
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PostPosted: 14:23 - 29 Feb 2012    Post subject: Reply with quote

Recession and some pretty rotten summers and a dip in new licensees when the new mod 1 came in and exchange rates pushing up prices sharply (and a rise in VAT) and Chinese fake-a-aways eating into the bottom end of the market and the increasing ease of finding a used private bike anywhere in the country then having it delivered for significantly less than dealer markup and typing "Big Barry's Bikes" into Google often turns up hits like "I've not spoken to a single person who hasn't said the word 'rip off' in the same sentence as 'Big Barry's Bikes'".

Bear in mind that businesses generally expand by borrowing, and to pay that back they need a rise in net profit, not just higher volume. That's exactly what you don't get in a recession when everyone is watching the pennies.
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