Price increase chart: read it and weep

...it's not the manufacturers who discount product, it's the dealers. Importers pay for imported stock based on an agreed (or imposed) fixed exchange rates for the given period, to give a semblance of forward-planning to the cashflow and profit/loss account. So they have little flexibility either, especially as many are owned by the parent conglomerate.

So why is it in the interest of manufacturers to INCREASE the import price, and with it the sticker price, when it inevitably results in lower sales, and forces franchised dealers to cut their own margins to ensure their own survival? The answer lies in the behind-the-scene jiggery-pokery that a price increase permits - not only do residuals rise on used machines (allowing dealers to generate additional profit on showroom machines long since bought-in and paid for) it can, for short periods, allow the importers and manufacturers to make excessive profits on a per-unit basis, clawing back losses from other times and areas.

It's a complex economic calculation, and the sheer scale of the Yamaha rises suggests their economists are compensating for getting it very, very wrong last year and are not expecting things to increase much, if at all, this. And at those prices they WILL be right...

But at the end of the day it's the decline in the dealer community that will do the greatest long-term damage to sales. Because neither manufacturers nor  importer sells bikes (well, Honda do, but they really don't seem to care which is why they've have the largest falll in franchised dealers in the last twelve months) `no dealers` means `no sales`. Or, focussing sale sinto the hands of the giant few. And no importer needs me to remind them of the dangers of THAT, because we all remember the 90's, don't we..?

It seems that the laws of supply and demand no longer apply to the bike industry, they think.

They will be proved wrong.

it just make the european bikes more appealing,look at a bmw gs1200 at 10 k or a speed triple  etc as im 50 this year ill seriously think about a triumph  or even the bmw as a new toy,the only positive thing is that second hand bikes will be worth more

I buy the SuperTriumph