Can anyone tell me why bike shops only open for half a day on Sunday?

[dipshit]

Ahem, and here we have the crux of the problem.

Much like when you go into Supercheap, and have some 18 year old student who, since they only work weekends, have not only piss all/no experience.

Doesn't matter. Working on my bike over the weekend (it is now passed 12:00 Saturday) and I need some oil or brake fluid or engine coolant or chain oil. I go to Supercheap because they carry a range of motorcycle products and are open. The motorcycle shop isn't.

People in the motorcycle industry need to get over themselves.

[dipshit]

Knowledgable staff, good mechanics....how do you achieve that easily? There is a severe shortage of those two factors in the motorcycle industry, FACT.

Many in the industry seem to think that just working in a bike shop automatically means the sun shines out of their arse.

[Morcs]

Id hate to see the trade move further to redshed mentality where you get ''service'' from a pimply low paid 16 year old with no product knowledge, that being almost as good as it gets.

whats wrong with taking on a 16 year old (or other young, unexperienced person) - TRAIN THEM. pass your knowledge on. Investing in people is one of the best things a business can do. Knowledgable people out of the box cost $$, and understandibly it may not be commercially viable to pay them for weekend work. Hiring someone cheap who can be trained (yes probably only to an extent, as they still wont have the years of experience) it can pay off as they should be able to provide a good enough level of service, at a very reasonable cost, meaning it is potentially viable to open on weekends.

Im not for or against the whole weekend thing, just pointing out the other side of the coin.

[dipshit]

I bet some guy that works in a motorcycle shop fucked your girlfriend, and was probably much better at it. You sure are one bitter tossbag.

No, it was much worse than that.

Someone in an "authorised Suzuki dealer" bike shop fucked around with my bike!

[Crasherfromwayback]

People in the motorcycle industry need to get over themselves.

Many in the industry seem to think that just working in a bike shop automatically means the sun shines out of their arse.

What's your excuse then? You're the most bitter, up yourself fuckhead I've come across on this site yet.

Are you gay?

[dipshit]

I can't belive i had to read till post 61 for somone to say this.
When i worked for a car yard we all worked the weekend (full days) and two days off in the week, also we had 1 weekend off every 4 weeks and we could swap shifts if we wanted as long as at the end of the month the hours matched.

Yes, perhaps some shop owners can't grasp that just because the shop is open x amount of time... doesn't mean all of the staff need to be there all of the time. A shop being open for business isn't the same as what hours you work.

Like in Hong Kong for example. Shops may be open from 7:00 am till 10:00 pm. Even small shops. One staff member may start at 6am and work till 2pm. A second staff member starts at 12:00 and goes through to 10pm or what have you. The two overlap between 12 and 2 pm for the busy lunchtime period. The shop is open for easy accessibility and staff members need only work typical hours in a week.

[dipshit]

What's your excuse then? You're the most bitter, up yourself fuckhead I've come across on this site yet.

Are you gay?

This must be such a blow to your ego.

[Robert Taylor]

Yes, perhaps some shop owners can't grasp that just because the shop is open x amount of time... doesn't mean all of the staff need to be there all of the time. A shop being open for business isn't the same as what hours you work.

Like in Hong Kong for example. Shops may be open from 7:00 am till 10:00 pm. Even small shops. One staff member may start at 6am and work till 2pm. A second staff member starts at 12:00 and goes through to 10pm or what have you. The two overlap between 12 and 2 pm for the busy lunchtime period. The shop is open for easy accessibility and staff members need only work typical hours in a week.

Therein still lies the problem, find competent staff and those willing to work irregular hours. Its not like pumping gas and selling lollies. Everyone that walks into a bikeshop pretty much expects every staff member to be able to answer technical questions and know all about the product etc. Have you got a light bulb for my Zundapp 50? Can you fit it? What do you mean there isnt a mechanic on duty at 9pm tonight?
We also have a small population that is often widely dispersed through small towns. The numbers just dont stack up for most small businesses.
You have on many occassions eluded to recieving poor service from a franchised dealer, due to inexperienced and incompetent staff? Unfortunately this is aproblem through this industry and also the motor industry.

[Robert Taylor]

whats wrong with taking on a 16 year old (or other young, unexperienced person) - TRAIN THEM. pass your knowledge on. Investing in people is one of the best things a business can do. Knowledgable people out of the box cost $$, and understandibly it may not be commercially viable to pay them for weekend work. Hiring someone cheap who can be trained (yes probably only to an extent, as they still wont have the years of experience) it can pay off as they should be able to provide a good enough level of service, at a very reasonable cost, meaning it is potentially viable to open on weekends.

Im not for or against the whole weekend thing, just pointing out the other side of the coin.

I have been in this industry for over 30 years and in various capacities in the retail side and the wholesale side have personally trained MANY. Also an 8 year stint as National examiner for Trade Certificate and Advanced Trade Certificate.
One of the biggest problems this industry has historically faced is very high turnover of staff and people leaving the industry. Many conspiring reasons, one of the main ones being low profit, low wages.

[Robert Taylor]

Buy your bikes from tarde me, your parts from overseas and wonder why your local bike shop won't drop everything to grovel to you !! Buy your bike and gear locally and see if your service changes !!
I do 9 hours a day in a bike shop and every customer thinks I should kiss arse because of the comimssion !! Guess what ---- There is so little margin in bike sales that I don't get commission !!!! and 1 in 50 customers is actually looking to buy a bike !!
Ask motorbyklist on this site about my service !!!
You want warehouse style shopping but moan cause the ma and pa stores with the real service have shut down !!!

100% true and if many of those grizzling did a stint in the bike industry theyd be blown away how there is so little reward for so much work.

[dipshit]

Everyone that walks into a bikeshop pretty much expects every staff member to be able to answer technical questions and know all about the product etc. Have you got a light bulb for my Zundapp 50? Can you fit it? What do you mean there isnt a mechanic on duty at 9pm tonight?.

Well if so many of the people that work in bike shops didn't love themselves so much... then they might realise that a lot of potential customers do have very good knowledge of their own bikes and just want to get parts without a whole lot of drama involved. And these are the very customers that are turning to the internet to get the parts instead.

[mynameis]

Nope. project management usually implementating change programmes.

Downturn conclusion is based upon bike shop closures, as posted by other members on here.

Doubt red baron keep sthe NZ operation open because it only loses the equivalent of loose change. (Didn't know they were part of a larger corp though). Most overseas branches, of multi-national corps are judged on a return on capital basis.

You really hate that Dick Smith example don't you. I'm fine with it.

I do think bike shop owners have thought about it and then think "oh bugger it no - if no-one else is doing it then I don't have to". The point of this thread was to give a consumers opinion upon this.

I wouldn't just guage the whole industry because a few jockeys have closed down, like any other industry people come and go it may or maynot be an indicator of how the industry is doing regardless of either that or what KBer's suggest. Just on that note there are more bikers now on the road than ever before...

ROI is all good and Red Barons books are open for you to view, you'll see they have been making loss for the past 5 years. Atleast 3 of the 5 anyway.

No I don't hate the DSE example, but for someone who is in PM and Change Management role I'd expect a little better comparison. What industry is it by the way? IT?

Maybe you're right about the last "0oh bugger it if no-one..." comment. Even if that is the case goes to show they can co-exist in harmony without getting too greedy and spoiling the industry standards/practice.

Live and let live I suppose, they all know they are in the same boat.

[merv]

Its not on the theme of hours open, but another issue I feel is essential to mention in relation to customer behaviour is brand loyalty. Pete can smile that WMCC has at least stayed loyal to Suzuki for a long time and almost as long to Harley Davidson and we did buy one Suzuki off White Trash when he was there. I myself don't drop in on the shops like I used to when I was young because some of them keep flipping changing brands. Sure it was likely a financial decision, but does that work for the shop? In the long run I doubt it.

I was a Sawyers customer for years with Hondas starting back in the Cuba Street days, bought my VFR from Adelaide Road, then they move to the Motorad premises. What happens, besides the stuff next door, they take on Yamaha, then they drop Honda. Me and Mrs buy two Yamahas off them, and I buy my next Honda from Motomart, then bugger me days Sawyers drop Yamaha and the Sawyers name. You don't build relationships continually changing who we deal with for what brand either. I hardly go to any shop now because I'm not a real customer of any of them as they've thinned my attention out. If I walk in there now who knows who I am, compared to when guys like denill ran a shop and rode with us at the club in the weekends.

Now whose fault is all this? The distibutors or who? In Welly we all know how many different places Yamaha have been including WMCC, same goes for Triumph, BMW, Ducati, KTM, Aprilia and even Honda - we remember Honda City in the Hutt losing Honda too.

Too many divorces and partnership break ups creates a dysfunctional society and staring at our computer buying stuff on the net we are still using our same loyal PC as silly as that sounds.

It does make me wonder why so many changes - has it resulted in great riches for the industry or made no difference? - I suspect the money isn't there to be stuffing around so much attracting the costs associatred with change.

I always wonder if distributors like Blue Wing Honda are the problem. We've heard about Triumph on this site too. I don't know why the Honda people from Japan just don't take more control over their product. Why not buy-out or merge Honda Cars with Motomart and voila all of a sudden 7 day service wouldn't be a problem. The last new car we bought was a Honda and we spotted the new model at the time in Masterton on a Sunday but shop not open, drive back over home way, dropped into Lower hutt, oh yeah they were open. Test drive one a rarity for us, Mrs loved it, bought one on the spot - that's how easy it was.

We (me and Mrs) are reasonably compulsive buyers and if you catch me on a good day I'll just buy it, tomorrow I won't bother. We have a number of bikes in our garage between us and the WR is the only one that I had a test ride on and then only because I couldn't belive that such a short stroke engine would have good bottom end torque. All the others I just went off spec sheets and said yes get me one of those. Funny eh, that's how I do things and those that know me know I like my bikes and I don't change them in a hurry either so very few bad choices. A lot of that is to do with the fact they will always feel weird to me on first try and you do have to settle in on a bike, hence I don't even bother with test rides usually.

So what I'm really raving on about is the shops have to be loyal to their customers and to their brands if they want to make a point of difference and have us loyal in return.

[SS90]

Knowledgable staff, good mechanics....how do you achieve that easily? There is a severe shortage of those two factors in the motorcycle industry, FACT.

This is a worldwide problem in general, as we develop our "global" economy, and the internet freely gives out "expert" titles to anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection, we have a steady supply of customers who all know better than experienced staff at a bike shop, and there is no convincing them otherwise.

The customer sees prices on the net for the same product that is, by in larger more expensive in New Zealand, and immediately jump to the conclusion that their local dealer is "stealing from them"

So, you now have a market that the customer ALWAYS know more that you, they think you are stealing from them, and you aren't open when they want you to be.

How the hell do you retain staff in this industry?

Job satisfaction? In the NZ motorcycle industry this concept is few and far between.

Kiwi's are well known penny pinchers, and so few are actually willing to spend the real costs involved in servicing their bike, and, so opt to do it themselves.

You only have to read some of the ridiculous threads on this site to see what I mean, OK perhaps, the ones that ask questions, no matter how silly, are actually doing the right thing by asking, and it is arrogant of me to make light if someone asking a question, but, man, some of the answers...... Bwahahahahah!

Threads like "so and so bike shop charged too much for my service", blah blah bike shop left a greasy finger print inside my rear mudguard" god!

It seems that the NZ motorcycling public expect a more professional service from the industry.

OK, then we must pay the workers in this industry better.

Not only to secure good new workers, but also to RETAIN the experienced ones that we have now!

So, all accesories go up 30%, labour in the workshop 40%,and bikes 20%

Happy now?

[tri boy]

Does Dipshit really dip shit, and if so, what into.
I'm picking it isn't wasabi, (he can't handle heat/pressure/kitchen).
Probably sprinkles Moron Dust over the turd before consuming them, (oh yes, he could consume quite a few I wager), plus he would have copious amounts of Moron Dust going by his attitude. MHO