Features

An inside look at the aftermarket industry – February 12, 2007

Arai
Brian Weston, director of operations
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “We introduced the Vector and the VXPro 3 during our June meeting here. The reception to both of them has been incredibly positive. So any dealer that hasn’t seen them already should probably come to Indy just to check those models, one of which, the VX Pro, has received rave reviews from all the magazines.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “The market seems to be turning around to more expensive helmets being a little more well accepted and not just get the cheapest one you can … A lot of kids are getting hurt in some of these boutique brands and I think the market is starting to realize maybe there is something to these more expensive helmets. It’s starting to come around.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “It continues to be the understanding of a helmet’s function. In particular, the safety standards and test procedures of those helmets. I believe there’s a big misunderstanding about the safety test procedures. People believing it’s a real world representation of impact, and it’s not. It’s a clinical testing procedure that helps you define how a helmet performs under a given circumstance. It by no means represents an actual impact. And Arai has always felt that you don’t design for the test because that’s not real world. You design for what real world is going to give you, and the tests provide a nice baseline to make sure that you’re consistent, doing the right thing, moving in the right direction and meeting all these different standards that help prove your helmet is up to snuff. But we still think there are more things that you have to consider.”
Big Bike Parts
Brandon Westphal, sales manager
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “I?believe our new line of grips is going to be huge. Looking at the comfort features of them, the selling benefits, the price point of them. Some of the grips out there you almost have to rotate at a specific angle” for them to offer any comfort level. “Ours are the same all the way around. That way it doesn’t matter where your hand, where your grip is, it’s still going to be comfortable.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “Consumer buying trends seem to be working more and more looking at what else is out there instead of the same staple items. Moving outside of the box a little bit more.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “Getting into more and more dealers. Making sure that we’re known. Making sure that everyone in the dealership knows about us. And making sure we’re taking care of the questions or concerns that they do have.”
Bridgestone
Bob Graham, manager of motorcycle products
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “We have a new BTO21 sport touring radial. It’s replacing the BT020, which we’ve had for quite a few years. Size applications are for your typical sport touring bikes, like Honda VFR800 and ST1300, a lot of the BMWs and a couple of Triumphs.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “In recent years, we’ve been having a shift toward the four-strokes because all the manufacturers went to the 250, 450 four-strokes. We design tires specifically for the 250 four-strokes and 450 four-strokes because the bikes requires a little bit of a different tire application so we had to make some adjustments. There was quite a bit of a transition there.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “A lot of tire companies have been struggling a little bit with fill rates. My understanding is inventories are relatively good, with a question mark. As we get into the peak selling season, I think there will certainly be some holes out there, some big holes. For all the tire companies, it’s going to be a bit of a challenge to keep trying to fill those holes in inventory as we go into the peak season.”
Cobra
Camron Bussard, director of marketing
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “I think it’s clear that the dealers really need to see the Fi2000 (a digital fuel processor). And here’s why: Fuel injection is the motorcycle world right now. They’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into fuel injection. What we’re finding is there is a lot of confusion at the dealer level — they think if it’s fuel injection, they don’t have to touch it because fuel injection adjusts itself. But the motorcycle engine doesn’t know that — it knows it needs fuel at a certain ratio to work properly. And when it needs acceleration, it needs more fuel. So what the dealers need to understand is how that motor needs to get fuel delivered to it and how a product such as this can do that in an economical and simple way. Because fuel injection isn’t that confusing. People sometimes talk about it as magic or mysterious, but it’s really very simple.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “What we’re seeing is a lot more customers are buying off the Internet.” If a customer had a problem with the product, “they would go back to their dealer and the dealer would work through the proper channels. What we’re seeing now is people are contacting us directly or they purchase it through the Internet and they’re saying, ‘You know, I bought this through an Internet guy, can you tell me more about it or what should I do?’ So more customers are calling us directly because of where they purchased the product.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “What we’re seeing is the distributors are shifting their model a little bit. In the past they would order their products and the dealers would actually stock product. But the distributors have become so efficient that the dealers don’t have to stock as much product anymore, especially something like exhaust systems, which are really big. So the challenge for us is to work within that narrow pipeline to make sure we can forecast to build enough product. Because (distributors are) working on shorter lead times, they want us to.”
EBC Brakes
Andy Freedman, CEO
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: EBC recently patented a new rotor design technology called SD-System. It offers a different design from most rotors, which feature a circular rivet to attach the rotor blade to the inner hub. The SD-System uses a square-sided rivet, allowing the rotor to expand inward or outward without any tightening that can lead to problems. EBC said this new design will extend the lifetime of the rotor.
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “Rotor business is up. There’s a lot of interest in it because the motorcycle the Japanese are building these days is lasting a lot longer. The engines are solid. The transmissions are solid. So guys are keeping the bikes longer, especially the street bikes. And they want to customize them and do some things with them. If you take a 1988 Yamaha Genesis, the bike is still going as fast as it did when it was built, and it rides well. There’s slightly better bikes out now but it’s still a great bike. Yet the front brake discs look awful … Consumers want something that looks pretty, that works and customizes the bike a little bit more.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “Making enough product. The rotors are selling so well we can hardly make enough. But there are no real challenges for EBC except making sure we keep ahead and keep up the supply.”
EVS
Todd Lentz, director of sales
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “The new helmet, (the TakT). We have spent the past 24 months developing it. I truly don’t believe anybody in the industry was waiting for another helmet to come out. But what we’ve done is taken a traditional piece of safety equipment and implemented features that haven’t been done before. It was a natural progression for us (as a protection equipment company). It’s probably the No. 1 safety item that you can manufacture and sell.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: Safety equipment “was never a viable buying category. If you look back at magazines years ago, there was nobody running a knee pad or knee brace ad. We created that trend. We put displays and bought real estate where nobody thought you could do it. It was all about hard parts and high-turn items. Nobody thought there would be a full-page ad of a knee brace. Five years ago, it was, ‘What’s a knee brace?’ Now it’s, ‘OK, what do I buy? And why?’”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “Education. We struggle with that every year. The ones that get it (the importance of safety protection products), do very well. The ones that don’t, never will. I hear dealers say all the time, ‘Well I don’t have people coming in asking for knee braces.’ A lot of that is (the dealer’s) job. We do a huge amount of advertising, a huge amount of promotion. They just need to be educated about the product. And that goes for anything. That’s not just my product. (Safety equipment is) a hard sell when you’re uneducated. So pick up the magazines. Read. Brush yourself up on what’s available and do your customers a favor and educate them also. They might not buy today, but you can put that seed in their head.”
Kenda
John Leale, North America
motorcycle/ATV sales manager
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “We have two new tires in our off-road line, the Washougal and the Budds Creek, which fills out our (motorcycle off-road) line to five specializing in different terrains. The Washougal is a little more forgiving and broader base terrain than the Millville, and the Budds Creek is one step down from the Carlsbad as far as the hard terrain.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “I see the dual-sport growing, and we offer four or five different dual sport tires. And, the scooter market is becoming more prominent.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “Brand recognition is an ongoing challenge. Dunlop and Metzeler all have a great following with name brand recognition and Kenda is not a household name. So we continue to try to advertise and be involved with events in the industry so people realize that Kenda is a player and that we’re a quality company and a quality product.”
Maxxis
Scott Griffin, national sales manager
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “We have four new tires that are going to be available in 14 inches. Our No. 1 selling tire, the Bighorn Utility Radial tire, is going to be available in a 14-inch. That tire has catered to the Rhino market very well. So that’s the market we’re going after — the UTV market.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “It’s becoming more of what’s new. Some of the older products are dying a lot quicker. The life cycle of the product is a lot shorter than it used to be.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “Trying to control pricing. We’ve had a couple of price increases this year with our distributors. It’s been minimal, but we’ve absorbed quite a bit. So we are busy trying to manufacture product and reduce some of the costs for us.”
Road Burner
Mark Dooley, president
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “We have a brand new product for ’07 — the 3-inch Blackhawk Road Pros. It’s black ceramic coated. I think we’re the first major exhaust manufacturer to offer the black ceramic coat, and it’s the same price as chrome. The road pros have the SLT muffler coverage. That stands for ‘Sound Lowering Technology’ and it reduces sound over conventional aftermarket exhaust systems.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “Black products. Like on the ATVs, we make black nerfbars, bumpers. That’s why we’re going to the black pipes (for street bikes). If you look at Biker Buildoff, all the pro bike builders have black exhausts systems. That’s not just me. You look at cars, motorcycles, quads, a lot of guys are starting to blacken things out. “
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “In the quad business, increased competition. We didn’t use to have a lot of competition, but now everybody has jumped on that bandwagon. For the street bikes, the California Air Resources Board and the EPA are really starting to crack down. That’s why we’ve come out with the Sound Lowering Technology because we’re trying to be proactive there.”
Scott
Primo Marotto, national sales manager
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “That’s going to be our Genius MX?boot — no doubt about it. It’s 30 years in the making, from when we originally had it. The material is one of DuPont’s new chemically designed polymers. That and our pivot system give it probably the most protection out of any motocross boot.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “In the off-road market, we’ve seen more of our high-end performance goggles (selling). I think we’ve educated more dealers and distributor reps on putting more high-end product into dealerships. Because with the low-end product, with the way guys ride these days, they’re not doing them any justice by putting a low-end goggle in there.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “It’s just the way the industry has gone. With the distributors manufacturing more of their own product, I think we just have to stay at the top level in our segment in the goggle industry to continue to make sure that we have our market share.”
Yuasa
Joe Majesky, sales director
What’s the one product that dealers shouldn’t miss this year at your booth at the Dealer Expo?: “The new product is our new 20-40 charger. It is a new four-amp, high-end charger. It also acts a desulfater. For the first 30 minutes it is hooked up to a battery that is low in charge, it will push 20 volts into the battery and allow it to break away that sulfation and allow the battery to accept a charge. This is a great make-or-break tool when you have an old battery that somebody brings in and says, ‘Is it good or is it bad? It won’t take a charge.’ If you put this on there and it doesn’t start taking a charge after 30 minutes, then you know it’s destined for the junk pile.”
What’s a customer-buying trend that has changed in your industry segment?: “The trend toward maintenance-free batteries is still there. It’s growing stronger and stronger. It’s more than 60 percent of our sales to the consumer now. People are looking for the no-hassle product, and our maintenance-free certainly provides that.”
What is your company’s biggest challenge for this year?: “Keeping the focus on our entire complete line of products that we have available — the chargers, the tester. Also, keeping people aware of our product line and new additions.” psb

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