How Do You Buy a Bike?

[Joe Bar]

No rhetoric at all, just facts. I didn't compare the R1 to the GS, I illustrated why the buying process is different. I could have named practically any other Japanese bike.

BMW don't generally build bikes without a customer order already in place. Dealers get around this buy placing their own orders, but they only put orders in the pipeline to the extent that they expect to sell them. At this time with less people buying bikes, BMW dealers will have put less orders in the pipeline, so they won't be sitting on stock they are desperate to shift. They'd still like to sell bikes, but they don't have stock on hand that will put them out of business if they can't shift it.

That's not quite how it works, or BMW AG would be out of business pretty quick and they're a bit cleverer than that.

Dealers have an allocation of bikes and a plan of when those allocated bikes will be delivered. This allocation is negotiated and agreed with BMW. Customers then place orders against these allocated bikes.

If the customers don't order, the allocated bikes are still on their way to the dealer. Having a situation where dealers could turn round and say we don't want any bikes until next year thanks would leave BMW holding all the undesirable models, all the end of line models and all the excess year end models.

By ensuring the dealer takes his full allocation, BMW ensure the dealer shifts the bikes rather than having to be finacially induced to do so, and allows them to better plan production. This system also means dealers have to take the full range of bikes rather than just the hot sellers.

This is why in the summer some dealers were quoting 2009 delivery for 800GS models, whilst some could deliver in weeks or even from stock. Some still had allocated bikes not sold and some had sold out their allocation.