A customer looking at one of your bikes is also peering into his cell phone. You can assume he’s texting, e-mailing or using Facebook, right? Not always.

EBR’s booth at Dealer Expo wasn’t conspicuous. There was no pomp and circumstance, bright lighting, attention-grabbing music or much else to announce the first-ever public viewing of Erik Buell’s new, consumer-ready sport bike.

I attended my first powersports auction less than two weeks ago in Indianapolis. Man, it was fast.

Numbers released this week by the Motorcycle Industry Council look grim on the surface. But there's good news as well.

With tighter disposable income, customers today are often looking for something more out of a sale. They’re asking, “What can the retailer give to entice me to purchase, or to encourage me to return in the future?”

Every week I get to talk to dealers like you. Whether I’m working on a story for the magazine or one of the Power Profiles, it’s great to have the opportunity to talk to our readership and hear anecdotally what’s going on in the industry, rather than just looking at statistics and general information.

For a couple weeks now, my e-mail inbox has been flooded with images and information about a variety of powersports products and services.