Re: [ST] chain guide needed - quick!

[Tom Emberson <ate_st@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Ben Snyder wrote:

>> For example, if I was king, they would have a set of luggage 
>> for every ST sitting in NA inventory.
>
> WOW! If you were king, we'd be paying alot more for our stuff 
> to cover all of the extra costs of producing, shipping and 
> storing that unpurchased inventory.
>
> I'm not much of a business man, but I know that if nobody's 
> gonna buy your product, then you shouldnt make it. More 
> appropriate for this situation, if people are only gonna buy 
> half the number of optional add-on units for all of the base 
> units you made, then you lose money, or make less depending on 
> the situation. I made those numbers up, no idea the ratio of 
> sprint sales to luggage sales is.

Hmmm, me thinks you miss-understand my terminology.

Say for example, TOA sells 10,000 ST's a year, but at any given 
time they have 500 on show room floors and dealer inventory, 
then, say 200 BRG, 200 Blue, 100 Red, they should have 200 BRG, 
200 Blue, 100 Red, in inventory, so that if they where to sell 
all 500 bikes in inventory, and all 500 owners wanted luggage, 
all 500 owners would be happy.

Now granted if you could prove that on 50% of new buyers wanted 
luggage than reduce the number from 100% to say 75%, there might 
be a run of people with older bikes who want luggage, accident 
damage, etc.

I am not saying keep 10,000 sets of bags in inventory.

BTW, you loose MORE money if you don't have the product to sell 
and some one takes all there business to someone that does.

> Granted, the first couple of years are tough to predict, and 
> it's a business decision how on whether or not to err on the 
> side of overstock or understock. This risk is SOMEWHAT lessened 
> if you know the EXACT same product will be available next year 
> (red luggage from '99 will work for '02).
>
> So, if 66% (that's a guesS) of the buyers of Sprints buy 
> luggage, and you make 1000 (for easy math) Sprints, then you 
> need to make 660 luggage kits. This is an over simplified 
> example, because as we all know there are 2 and 3 box kits, 
> topbox only kits, as well as color options.

Close, but I would expect that Triumph does not have to place a 
full years order at once, but they probably do have to come up 
with a reasonable idea of numbers and such.

If I knew better then, I probably would not have gotten the ST. 
There is no way I would have agreed to wait 3 months for the 
luggage. I would probably be riding a CBR1100 or ZX11 with GIVI.

I will not make the mistake again. Hopefully TOA is learning as 
well.

t.


/*************************************************************
 Thomas Emberson
 '01 BRG Sprint ST (last count 14 months old, 21,400 miles)
 '00 Yamaha WR400F
 sold: '98 ZX6e, '99 ZX9r, '95 EX500
*************************************************************/


     *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
      The ST/RS Mailing list is sponsored by Jack Lilley Ltd.
          http://www.TriumphNet.com/st/lilley for more info
   http://www.TriumphNet.com/st for ST, RS and Mailing List info

=-=-=-= Next Message =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=