I have 2 dealers close to me. 1 will give you 20% off everything you buy the day you buy the bike ('cept the bike). The other will absolutely not. The only reason I bought my bike form the one who didn't was that I got them to install everything for free. They used to do that when you bought a bike but don't anymore.

I told them I could put everything on myself, it wasn't that big a deal. They then explained if they did it, it came with the same 2 year warranty as the bike, not 90 days. I figured I would rather have the 2 years.

 

I guess I'm really lucky. The parts guy in Joplin, Missouri always gives a discount to his repeat customers. On the other hand the dealer in Tulsa, Ok where I bought my bike only gave me some deals on the day I bought it. So I go to Joplin for most things.

 

Not sure about how HD works, but when I was in parts in a new car dealership, we couldn't match prices with the bigger dealerships because they were buying at a discount because pricing was based on volume purchased. Needless to say our small dealership couldn't purchase enough $ to play with the big boys.
Very hard to compete like that. Especially with the creation of the internet. Dealer "A" is buying $10,000,000 a year in parts and accessories from HD and dealer "B" is buying $1,000,000 a year. Who do you think is gonna get the best price, that they can then pass along to their ****omer?
And oh yea-it's not always as simple as a lower price at purchase between dealer "A" and dealer "B"-it's usually hidden at the end of the year as a "rebate", "award", "incentive", or some other BS. So all HD dealers ARE paying the same price up front.
At least thats the way it worked in the Car dealerships I've worked in. Not sure about HD, but willing to bet its similiar

 

I have 2 dealers within 30 miles of me that will run 25% off everything in stock (except bikes) fairly regularly.

 

Simple economics...supply and demand....and profit desired. At 20% off, they still make money...but not as much. Also, some people are "gotta have it now" types...and no since giving discounts to those people that will gladly pay full retail to have the item in their hand 2 minutes later.

I give my local dealer a shot at times. If they have it in stock, I'll take whatever (or not) discount they offer at the time. If they have to special order it, I've never received in less than two weeks...so I've learned to automatically just tell them "no thanks", and then come home and order it myself online with the discount from Chicago, Surdyke, or Zanoitti.

 

Actually, they make more money than the ones who don't sell sh*t at list price.
See Amazon and Walmart. Lower sale prices means bigger sales volume.
Harley doesn't give a f*ck about dealers selling a handful of new bikes per month. Why should they, when some dealers selling below MSRP will sell 10 times more?

 

Internet sales are a done deal, they maybe able to ship direct from HD to your house and they never touched the stuff (less overhead). Also if you sell $1M at 10% profit is better then $300K at 30%.

On a side note Marvincbr, Just because you purchased the parts outside the state of Illinois, you still may have to pay use tax if you use the parts in Illinois. Look at your State of IL income tax form. The use tax is what a business pays, sales tax is what customers pay.

 

Because on an internet sale it takes one person an hour to proccess dozens of orders, instead of one patrs counter guy spending an hour trying to figure out what it is you think you want!

 

chicago hd started the 20% off..then a few other dealers were forced into it. Barry Brown the owner of CHD has very few dealership owners that like him,it's called cut throat, 12 years ago when all my local dealers were charging at least 3000 over msrp for a bike, Barry still sold me one at msrp..he's alright in my book.

 

Um, I meant per sale. Overall, volume makes more money in the long run of course.