to coin a phrase... oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.....
 

DLS & DLC have got the doors shut & are closed for business as from today: Thurs 29th Sept:o

:puzzled:

DLS Websites still up and running !

who??

I may be wrong but is that Ducati London South and Ducati London Central ?

thats not good, i don't think any dealers have had a good year :(

Would you care to elaborate C..??! :puzzled:

Nat

dont know much more Nat, that can be posted at the mo, but the shops are shut & customers bikes in the workshop are going back out asap.

Just checked the other channel and saw your comments mate...bit of a shock that..mind you..after they insulted me by offering to knock £75 off a new S4R for me (when I got a grand off at Pegasus) cant say im losing much sleep..

Nat

oh dear, oh dear, oh dear

Real shame that !! but i say, bring on the Independant's
reason!
we need your Business
We want your business
you make paydays possible

seems some company's have forgot that !!

20 odd yrs in the bike trade myself and yes it's the worst year i've known!!

there'll be more to follow, most dealers are on bad years and with bike prices dropping your S/H stock is in for a write down at year end. I've bought 3 "new" bikes this year and minimum I've got off list price has been 20%, ok 04 mdels but when a dealer has a SH bike at same price you ain't going to buy that so dealers made nothing of biker he sold me still has second hand one in stock and probably has to sell it at a loss, not many businesses can afford that for long.

Sad news
This is a trend that is continuing throughout the motorcycle trade, Large corporate businesses closing the doors to be replaced by traditional small family run motorcycle enthusiasts.
Ok so we only sell Small capacity bikes, but last year we had some very large motorcycle chains as competition, they are gone now and we are booming. I think it is also beneficial to the customer, Much more personal and a better service to boot.
Im With mav on this one Independants all the way
Glyn

That's good news Glyn. Long may it continue :)

I've been fed up with these big dealers ripping you off with un-personal service to pay for their big shiney superstores etc.

Long live the small/family shops :D

To be honest I think the whole world is slowly going full circle. We'll all be riding on horse and carts up the leafy M1 in 20 years :lol:

A wise dealer once told me that he made 1/3 of his income in the showroom, 1/3 of his income in the workshop and 1/3 of his income from spares and clothing. He also said that in bad times (like now) he existed off the workshop because most folk who held onto their bikes still wanted them servicing properly. He said stick to those key principles and you can't go wrong .....

Spot on Henners

Yep, Motorbikes aint trendy anymore, think back a few years and they were every where, music videos, Hollywood films (blade, Matrix etc)

Ducati was voted one of Britains coolest brands.

Then they opened the Chelsea Ducati shop and that was very un-cool, last thing we needed was a load of floppy haired hooray henry`s poncing about on 999`s.

I`m glad they have closed, like the previous post`s in this thread said, It will leave the way for small business`s that care about the customer and have a passion about bikes.

Not Big high street Store`s who care more about money then the customer, when ever I went in DLS or DLC, I always felt like I was`nt welcome or valued as a customer.

Over priced with bad customer service sums them up best.

Incidently, Harley DavidsonMaidenhead had there best month of the year last month, selling 21 bikes.
And their customer service is EXCELLENT, they cant help you enough, you are encouraged to test ride there bikes and they are just very very freindly guys, same goes for WARRS in Chelsea ( the expensive Kings road bit, not that cheap Gunter grove bit :lol: )



[Edited on 29-9-2005 by Bubbles]

:o:o:o:o:o do you meen Henners ;):lol::lol::lol::lol:

In July i bought a set of Ducati Performance hi level Titanium exhausts of DLS.They were brand new never been unwrapped but judging by the box in stock for some time.Complete with free flow air filter and replacement top etc
Price......£345 inc vat and carriage,less than half price.I guess thats why they were so cheap then!

Funny,ive only ever dealt with 4 ducati dealer outfits for spare parts etc. in my 5 years of owning them. 3 have gone.Am i a jinx!.Best hope not Daytona in Ruslip.

It\'s OK Van ....
 

.... none taken :lol:

Very shocked to hear that DLS have gone out of bussines but I`m not supprised considering the reception I recieved at times. Lets hope that other dealers in the area can benefit and get their customers.

don't wish this on anyone .... and DLS had some good people there .... I feel for them, I really do ..... but Marcellos no ones mug, he'll be back with something new, although we haven't always seen eye to eye, I wish him well for whatever is next for him and the team .......

They never got a penny of my dosh. Been in the shop once when they opened. . Said then they would close.

That is a surprise. I have to say I've only been to DLS for the odd part, but I've always had a good experience.

I just hope Pro Twins in Godstone keep going otherwise where am I gonna get my parts?!!

Ade.

Really sorry to hear this and especially sorry for the people who worked there like Martin who's a good bloke. Best of luck to them all but perhaps opening DLC was a step too far in a poor market!

It is indeed a shame if they have closed their doors for good, not that I had ever been to any of their stores, but I certainly visited their stand at the Ally Pally show the last couple of years.

I feel sorry for the 2 lads racing this year, who now cant use/access their bikes, to complete the season at Cadwell next week:(

Never been to these stores, but I think the whole biking market is spiralling downwards and has been for a few years, couple of people I know who had bike/accessory shops got out while they could a year or two ago because the market was already shrinking.

It won't be the first Ducati store to close, I can imagine a few more will, but some will survive probably as henners has said purely on servicing alone until spring next year when sales might pick up.

I think Ducati have to take some of the blame to a degree and their marketing though, look back to last year and at Laguna WSB they launched the 05 bikes, and suddenly no one wanted an 04 999/749 and dealers had to discount bikes heavily to shift what was effectively old stock then.

True. That must've been a big shock to the dealer system, having bikes on your showroom floor that nobody wants unless you give them away.

I think it's sad whenever a small business closes it's doors, having been involved in this sort of thing myself I would say that all small businessmen are acutely aware of their customer needs. Like all other walks of life though some people are better catering to the customer than others.

You actually need much more than good customer skills. It's easy to make all your customers happy by giving them huge discounts and bending over backwards to chuck in little sweeteners, but to stay in business your first duty is to make a profit. Any idiot could make customers deleriously happy for a while by giving the shop away, but they wouldn't last long.

Another thing about customer satisfaction is that it's hugely variable. Some people are satisfied by going into the shop and paying the ticket price if they know that they're going to get a hassle free deal, other people would be ****ed off if they paid more than cost. We all know that some people are too easily satisfied and there are others who will never, ever be happy regardless of what you do for them.

The other reason that some dealers may be less willing to do deals is what their cost base is DLS and DLC, by definition have LONDON in their titles and we all know that you have to pay premium prices for London premises. If you're obliged to run a big glossy solus type showroom as well your costs are much, much higher than the small independant who tend to be in cheaper premises or where they might own the freehold of a family business that was bought and paid for long ago, by definition, there's less fat in every deal for you to give away.

The main reason is linked to the "Is the UK in recession" thread that BDG started. Perhaps not exactly, but nearly everyone I know has surfed the credit boom driven by cheap remortgages and loans and now finds they're nearly maxed out. Buying big ticket items like bikes is not on everyones shopping list right now, we're the lucky few and have you noticed from the market place forum that even we're not buying bikes as quickly as we did a few years back?

its one of the problems of the way information gets out to public.

4 years ago we could do a trade show at eurobike ( the mtb big trade show), the jounos come over, check it out, take photos go back home, develop photos, write copy, goes to mag, gets printed and hey 2 months later the end user reads about it. Now I get press on the booth who ask if we have wireless connection so they can upload the images to a website then and there, 5 minutes later the whole world can see our new stuff and any dealer with stock is screwed, it must be the same for the motorbike companies.

With regard to being in recession I can say without doubt Yes. The first to feel the pinch are the new traders selling expensive and unessasary goods.

We have a hotel and although turnover is up We have had a marked decline in heads thruogh the door this year. people are just not spending money! or have now reached max borrowing on credit cards/ remortgaging etc. So now the country is in economic down turn people are S##ting them selves.

Bloody hell,i find myself agreeing with Jools,must be the effect of T8 ownership!
Its sad when any business fails ,but in all things the fittest servive.
We ARE in recession (no matter what the polititions say)and the first thing to suffer are TOYS!
I have a mate who is a TVR dealer and he was the first to suffer,he has a brand new car that he will have had in stock for 90 days at the end of next week and as such he will have to pay for it then,accordingly it can be bought at cost today!
Henners was dead right whnen he said about profit splits,i think to many of these solus dealers dont have the background or workshop throughput to ride out the storm.
I wouldn't personally get hung up on the "glossy stainless and glass showroom" kick ,theres nothing wrong with having pride in your working enviroment and i certainly wouldnt be happy taking my "babies" to someones grubby shed to have it serviced(and im certainly not sugesting any of our specialists are anything of the sort).
Incidentally Riverside in northampton are (allegedly) in administration as of last friday,so its tuff time for the bike industry.
Butch
p.s keep up the good work Jools!;)

As mentioned above, it's a shame when things like this happen, but from my personal experiences I certainly won't miss them.

Pro-Twins are not far from DLS, do an excellent job & offer a much better experience/ service. I just hope they continue to do so now that the competition have closed down.

So i did hear right.

cheap performance parts and gear getting sold off ??!!

:burn::sing::sing:

There's no doubt about it guys, it's been a weird year for sales. Up and down would be an understatement!
Jools comments above are pretty much spot on! Butch also hit the nail on the head with his remarks about a recession!
It's totally agreed there have been some factors totally outside the control of the dealerships that have affected profitability and sales dramatically, we as dealers just have to try and deal with these factors and look to our customers for support to take us into the future!
I must be frank though, Bubbles comments above leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I am a Ducati Store owner. Luv my job, luv my bike and get a buzz out of my job every time I come to work. We have (in my biased opinion!) a stunning store with some of the most comfortable surroundings you will find in any dealership anywhere in the UK! Coffee area, plasma screen, playstation (MotoGp rocks!) Satellite TV music and just a generally chilled out welcoming environment (all supplied for the comfort of our customers!!)
However we aren't just interested in the dosh. Far from it. My blood is truly Ducati red. Ask anyone that knows or uses us. I've been riding for 20 years, been a customer and know exactly what it's like to get fecked around and treated like sh*t. We / I go out our way to welcome every new customer into this brand and make the whole experience as painless as possible. That's the main reason for opening the store......... to make a difference for the better.
I have to point out, we are a family owned and run independant business. Just like DLS and DLC. (Marcello's mother was a significant force in running their store) I have only 3 staff that work their backsides off trying to keep a truly varied customer base happy. My retired mother in her late 60's comes in to clean our place twice a week. We couldn't hardly be a smaller family run business!!!
We, like everyone else in the club love Ducati motorcycles. I loved them so much I put everything I owned into opening up a store so I could talk, work, and play with Ducati's every day for the rest of my working life. I wonder how many people in the club can admit to that??? My passion is prooved by my dedication!
I happen to know Marcello felt the same way. I think it's brutal that there are some posts here "glad" to see them close. Think about the amount of money they potentially could have lost!..... The time they dedicated to this most worthy cause! ......The great staff in there that are looking for a job 11 weeks before Christmas!!!! (thats rough!)
Fair enough, maybe they could have polished up there act! I don't know, I didn't ever deal with them that way. Take it from me, it is simply impossible to keep EVERYONE happy ALL of the time although we try!! But lets take our hats off to the fact they gave it a shot. I for one was gutted to see them go!
I'll get off my soapbox now!
Take it easy guys.

:puzzled:

Anyone got anymore info on this one ? Having left a deposit for a 749 with them last weekend I am obviously fairly anxious to know anymore news.

Jiminy

ps - And before anyone asks .... I'm not one of those foppy-haired Fulham-ites, just a Ducatista keen to get hold of his bike.

Don't get upset too quickly Jiminy!

Best idea would be to contact Duc UK on 0845 1 222 996.
Bit late in the day now but Monday they will be there. They are in the best position to offer you sound advice on this.

Explain the situation to them, see what they suggest! If DLS can keep trading i'm sure they will. It's early days, the dust hasn't even settled yet!


Martin

Dseered & Martin - thanks for your kind words of wisdom, and the welcome - it's good to know you have virtual friends out there. Just a little anxious as you can see. I will watch and wait for the outcome of the DLC/DLS debarcle. However it won't prevent my joining the best of the best. Having had such an expectation over the last week of what life will be like on a classic example of performance and design I WILL get my 749 come what may. Can't turn back now !!!

Jiminy

ps - as is the tradition of first-time post-ers 'please join me for a drink ..... '

Actually Martin you may be able to help ..... DLC were soucing the 749 Dark from another Ducati dealer somewhere in the UK. Any way I could find out where it was being sourced from ??

Ta muchly

Jiminy