Fall and Winter is a time for upgrades and accessories online

I just took this picture on Key Biscayne today. Its perfect weather for a scooter ride in Florida a nice 70 degrees, sunny, and you wouldn't know its freezing up in New Jersey. I have to cut it short because I have to rush to the office to take pictures and add about 200 new items to our offerings. We keep adding products every single day this time of year.

For me anything around sixty degrees is too cold, but for the majority of people its normal. So they get distracted by the weather and forget regardless of how warm or cold it is there is work to be done. I will likely talk to 30 to 40 stores today and I'm sure to hear from new business owners some will be telling they are laying off staff, or working part time. I think this is the wrong approach. Now is the time to focus on your business plan, your online business plan, and work harder than ever. Every year right before we start calling for Dealer Expo we will get numbers that cease working and bounced emails, I will get a letter saying we didn't do any business in December so we closed. Yes, in some situations its the economy or the weather, but in a good portion of them its because you didn't expand in the winter time. Even some of the biggest stores in the country are victims to this line of thinking. They have 20 employees and no eCommerce. They live all year long to pay General Electric flooring interest and then at the end of the year have to let people go. This isn't the way.

I say focus on upgrades and accessories. There is a myth that cutting costs in the winter time is the key to survival. I say go online. Focus on building your community and drop shipping things that are different. Nobody cares that you have Parts Unlimited or WPS because they don't offer anything different in the world of scooters. Its great for a snowmobile dealer, but it does nothing for your scooter shop. Focus on parts the other guys won't touch. If Dennis Kirk and Powersports Network are drop shipping scooter parts then you should be as well. Because none of these guys will focus on Taiwanese brands like PGO, TGB, SYM, or Kymco. GO WHERE OTHER PEOPLE FEAR GOING.

Drop shipping the same Chinese parts the other guy has also won't get you to the top of Google. Try new accessories, something different, and build up your following. There are 20,000 parts in our warehouse I don't even have time to promote it all. One dealer this week is doing a small fortune on the Honda PCX parts. We have a bunch of exhausts and variators for them. Our biggest dealer in Maryland is shipping Naraku parts left and right because there is nobody else online promoting Naraku like he does. So find your nich, focus, promote. You want to be the biggest CPI parts guy online, Take it! The world is yours! Do what the other guy doesn't now in the winter time is the time.

So its that time of year where dealers and riders should look at doing the service on their bike. Changing the belt, rollers, checking fuel filters. Maybe even adding a GIVI windshield or MRP luggage box like you see on the bike in the picture.

Just because its cold it doesn't mean you shouldn't be working. The biggest mistake store owners do is they don't use the slow season to work on their drop shipping website. Now is the time to do reviews, upload new product, stay active and promote your online sales.

Need help selling more online? Email me.

I will help you get 20,000 items online today. This is the time because once spring is here you will be too busy to do it.

Every year I hear from store owners that lament not having time to build a website or how their website has no eCommerce. Your goal is to never be in this situation again, to have year round online sales.

Call us, we want you to be as busy as we are.

The Future of US Retail is online for everyone even small scooter stores

I honestly think that the best performing stores sell online. They have to. If they don't they live off local and regional sales.

This is why the motorcycle industry has such a high churn rate. The average dealer is too busy to really think about it, but I always see former owners at the show working as a manager at a new store. One of them came to me this year at Dealer Expo and told me that I was right, that he should have sold online. It might have saved his business. In ten years most stores only last two to three years. Few dealers have made it to ten. If they do they deserve all the respect in the world. Every market is different but the last four years have not been kind to the US motorcycle industry.

If you own a scooter store in North America right now and don't have a website. Get one today. Blog, open a facebook account, and start selling online even if its Ebay. The future of all stores depends on Social Networks.

You can spend your entire day arguing with someone over how much it costs to change his tire that he purchased on another website and brought it in to your shop or you could be drop shipping from MRP. You could be on the beach right now remote connecting, answering the phone, and working on selling some parts.

Consumers call us all day long. We get so busy they expect us to talk to them for 40 minutes about what a variator does. I always have the same answer, tell me your location and if there's not a dealer I have a list of dealers that will talk to you on the phone that sell online. We get the sale anyways, but we are one of the few companies that send this business back to the dealership in that way.

So if you can answer the phone and help people. Call us. Get set up today.