Quote:

Problem for Triumph in taking this direction is that it won't work for them.
Harley only sells essentially two bikes...Sportys and big twins....every models is a variant.
Triumph are trying to attract a wide range of motor cyclists with tastes running from racer through adventure bikes to custom.
Over here these are very different sorts of people...if you cater to one, you've lost the others.
And you have to be very good at image and at service too.... when I go in my HD shop I'm treated as an honoured guest......staff are knowledgeable and the coffees good.
In my local Triumph shop, its a multi franchise..I know more about the Triumphs they're selling than their salesmen do.
The coffee machine is broken and its nobody's job to fix it.
Doesn't inspire confidence, or even the wish to be there...just the desire to out as soon as possible......
Al




Yes, the incidences of potential purchasers of Triumph's wares in one of those multiple brand superstores, and ESPECIALLY if many of the other brands sold there are from Japan, and with the sales force seeming knowing less about the Triumphs than the customer, IS a very frequent one it seems, Alan.

There also seems to be less of an occurrence of this when the other brands sold in such an establishment only come from Europe, i.e., BMW and Ducati.

And regarding the whole "Harley" thing...

I think their success in the market place might be based a little less on the idea that H-D sells only cruisers and that their sole brand "boutiques" have better coffee and perhaps friendlier and a better informed sales staff due to carrying less an array of various other "genres" of motorcycles, but probably more to the thought that "when you purchase a Harley-Davidson, you're also buying into a lifestyle", and a "lifestyle" clearly defined by solely being seen riding a cruiser, and in addition to all the OTHER little "lifestyle" crap and the idea of "Heritage" that The Motor Company has been SO good at touting to the public for years and years.

(...and of which even though Triumph CAN to some degree claim some of that "Heritage" concept for themselves and of which probably DOES help sell a large percentage of their product, I think STILL falls far short of being as successful a marketing ploy as it does for H-D)


Yep! Just like a good Single Malt Scotch, you might call me "an acquired taste" TOO.(among the many OTHER things you may care to call me, of course)