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Jaguar Power Sports markets its way to double-digit growth

From its origins as a business to its unit offerings and marketing strategy, Jaguar Power Sports of Jacksonville, Florida, is not your average dealership. For starters, it’s one-of-a-kind in that it has its own flesh and blood mascot, similar to what sports teams feature. 

The dealership’s unconventional character — mascot and otherwise — as well as its unique market share has translated to year-over-year revenue growth of 50 percent from 2016 to 2017, leading to a Powersports Business Power 50 Award for 2017, among other accolades. The dealership was also named to the Inc. 5,000 (No. 1,451) as one of the fastest growing companies in the country. 

But being a dealership that mostly sells pre-owned units and doesn’t carry any new units from conventional OEMs, Jaguar Power Sports has to do things differently, including marketing.

Jaguar Power Sports’ mascot, Jolt, attends events around town and helps increase brand awareness. Photos courtesy of Jaguar Power Sports

Among the many unique marketing strategies the Jaguar Power Sports employs to get its name out there, is the aforementioned mascot — Jolt the Jaguar. The mascot makes appearances at a number of events around town, including at the home games of the Jacksonville Sharks, the Arena Football League team that Jaguar Power Sports has sponsored for the past five years. Jolt is one of the many ways that the dealership has been able to become a well-known entity in the community. Owner Shaun Jackrel noted that the dealership’s overall strategy is to reach as many people as possible because much of their niche market — those with poor credit — comes from all walks of life.

“We’re not an OEM dealership and we don’t have the type of advertising dollars that other companies have, so we wanted to create a niche to where we focus more on getting people riding no matter what their credit is,” Jackrel said. 

He added that the dealership also has a presence at other semi-pro sporting events around town, as well as radio and TV ads. But the bulk of their marketing dollars are spent on maintaining a strong social media presence. Using the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Snapchat, Jaguar Power Sports keeps churning out content on current and potential customers’ timelines.

“We fly our logo pretty much everywhere. We have three different teams that hit social media. We try to do as many live videos and capture content as possible to where we can get the information of anyone that’s watching for future emails and promotions—through giveaways and such,” Jackrel said.

Of course, a big part of Jaguar Power Sports’ marketing success comes by taking care of their current customers; Jackrel estimates that about 20 percent of his business comes from word of mouth.

While the dealership has successfully maintained a presence in the community, a big part of their growth can be attributed to the market they serve — those who don’t necessarily have great credit. 

According to owner Shaun Jackrel, Jaguar Power Sports has increased its revenue 50 percent month-over-month since expanding in 2016.

Jaguar Power Sports sells mostly pre-owned motorcycles, but also stocks Bintelli scooters and electric bikes, as well as go-karts, ATVs and dirt bikes from China-based manufacturers.

However, a large part of the business is pre-owned Harley-Davidson bikes. According to Jackrel, Jaguar Power Sports is the No. 2 Harley-Davidson dealership in terms of volume within Jacksonville. Additionally, he said that Jaguar is No. 6 in sales of Bintelli scooters in the state. Jackrel attributes a lot of the growth of Jaguar Power Sports to their focus on the poor credit market. As a result, the businesses’ first two locations weren’t big enough. 

Their current location, at 4680 Blanding Boulevard in Jacksonville, wasn’t even big enough for the growing business. In 2016, Jaguar Power Sports underwent an expansion that allotted more space for the pre-owned motorcycle inventory. Jackrel credits this expansion with Jaguar Power Sports’ significant revenue growth. 

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“We did a build-out that tripled our size, and it made it a dual showroom for the pre-owned motorcycle side of our business. It also increased the size of our service center — we pretty much have two of them right now,” Jackrel said. 

Jaguar Power Sports began as a small booth at a flea market in 2003, and the dealership still has a presence there, staying true to its humble roots.

In 2003, he started the business in a 50-square-foot stall at an area flea market, before expanding into a 900 square-foot brick and mortar store two years later. He still spends weekends at the flea market, which he said still contributes to about a fifth of his bottom line. It’s this personal touch, and the dealerships’ origins as a down-to-earth establishment, that Jackrel hopes to get back to in 2018, specifically in the service department.

“We’re going to ramp up the service side of it because that’s kind of been the challenge for us the last few years. We have certified Harley techs now, so people have the confidence to bring a $25,000 Harley to us,” Jackrel said. “As far as the service side, it’s more of a mom-and-pop feel and less corporate; it’s more of a fun atmosphere where people can hangout. We do barbeques too; we want to make it more than just a ‘take a number’ atmosphere.”

Among other changes in the coming years, Jackrel said he is currently scouting new locations in Jacksonville to open other Jaguar Power Sports locations. He’d also like to get into the pre-owned marine industry at the same time. From the outside it seems like an aggressive business plan, but when business is growing at 50 percent month over month, it seems that he can’t scale up fast enough.

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