Wednesday, March 11 2009
Its widely known that the current credit crunch/recession/depression is having an effect on peopl’s pockets at the moment and the fact that new bike prices have rocketed due to the lousy exchange rate is hardly helping matters.
What this means is that when riders are looking for used bikes so there are less around, as of course, less people are buying new bikes. This can though work in your favour, try and follow if poss;
Traditionally, manfuacturers over order bikes and the same model you see in the showrooms in March at the beginning of the season for £6999 is often being sold for a thousand quid less at the end of the season as the manfuacturers offer the dealers better deals and incentives to buy bikes out of season. The dealers with the balls and the cash do this in the hope luring customers in who otherwise might have been put off.
However, the manufacturers knew last year what was going on and so ran most of their stocks down during the course of the season and its the same now. No manufacturer wants to be saddled with thousands of bikes they cant shift so there are no longer the deals being offered to the dealers, which means there arent massive discounts to be had on new bikes.
What this means of course is that there is a big difference in price between say a 2007 model and a 2009 model, maybe as much as £4000+ on the right bike, say a Fireblade or an R1. Whilst there arent many people willing to shell out 10k in this environment for a new R1, there are still a load of people that will part with a few grand for a bike, hence why used bike prices are actually trickling up in value, rather than down.
Additionally of course, an older model with a lower model will be cheaper to get bike insurance for.
Back in the day I used to buy and sell a few bikes and I reckon there is a pile of cash to be made from trying to get hold of 2-3 year old bikes and selling them on for a few hundred quid profit per time. The trick to selling is buying for the right price, so if you’ve got the cash, the cheek to ask for a deal and the balls to gamble in this market then I reckon you could fo really well.
Article by Dan
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