I just found out that Bradenton Florida Harley shop has closed and merged with their store in Sarasota(Rossiters)....I'm shocked as no warning or news of that came out...Anyone in that area no anything about what happened?What happened to the employees???That was a great customer friendly store this is sad news.....

 

Naples HD closed too,a former "Scott Fisher Enterprises" shop, it merged with its sister dealership formerly known as Six Bends,formerly known as Fort Myers HD, now newly renamed "Rockstar HD" 25 miles up the road in Fort Myers.

Port Charlotte HD was a great small shop, it was a motorcycle shop, great parts guys, it was bought out and renamed "Bert's Black Widow HD" Bert's also owns a HD dealership in St Pete.

Now it is just another glorified tee shirt shop pumping out free beer and having bikini bike detailing on weekends.

As HD sales ( both tee shirts and motorcycles) fall, the smaller shops are going to succumb to Darwinism

 

Thanks for the info Neggy...I live in Sebring and that was out go to shop.....Just never heard anything about this till this morning....Bid Shocker....Hate it for their employees,great bunch of folks....

 

Yep, afraid we are probably going to see more and more of this in the near future.

 

Manatee River was always a slow store. I found out that they were merging about 3 weeks ago when we stopped by while in the area.

 

Another bite the dust.

 

I feel the same way. With a new younger non motorcycle generation taking over from us 50 + guys, I see more Harley dealers going out and other brands too. I'm in Michigan I can see a big difference in just the last 5 years. Dealers don't have the foot traffic like just a few years ago. Another big difference is the bike hang outs, all the places I would go by 10 years ago would always have bikes parked there, now I go by the same places all over Michigan and the parking lots are empty of bikes, makes me sad. My wife and I still love our Harleys but we are over 60. I hope the MoCo can keep new people coming in to bikes. Judging from my large family I don't see any one under 30 that cares at all about Harleys or any bike. Sad.

 

Unfortunately that is true. But many HD stores started when the fad days were here back around 1995. Harley's were hot. Prices
went way up when the supplies couldn't keep up. Things stayed that way for almost ten years. The temptation to get in on the action
was just too great. Dealerships sprung up all over. But Harleys are not like cars. They are not really "consumable" like automobiles. Automobiles
get driven a lot. A whole lot. They wear out. They get tired and ugly. They become "not worth fixing". That's not the case with a Harley.
So the demand for them slows as the supply increases. There aren't enough sales to go around to keep everybody profitable. The result
is what we are now seeing.

 

Sad to see this. I believe only the old time dealers who did not expand into Walmart sized shops will be the ones to weather the storm. Most of the older dealerships are paid for with no big mortgage on them. I know in my area the design is third generation.

 

The $30,000 LiveWire should prevent more stores from closing.