An Interesting Marketing Decision

 

Since I moved the Dark Side by buying my Road King I have been very
pleased with the service I have received from Calgary Harley. I sill
am.

That said this summer Calgary Harley implemented a new kind of
rewards/rebate/loyalty program. The Calgary Harley Advantage Program
(CHAP). Prior to the CHAP, HOG members simply got a 10% discount on
parts and accessories. I always thought the discount was intended to
make up for the fact Calgary Harley marks up Harley parts by
approximately ten points over suggested retail.

The 10% discount disappeared when the CHAP program was implemented. At
the time I received an email from Calgary Harley explaining the new
program to me and providing this link:
http://www.calgaryharley-davidson.com/CH-D_Advantage_Program.pdf

At face value it looks like a better program. Labour for service is
now eligible for the rebate, although their labour rates were raised a
month or two before the CHAP was initiated, and there is a 5% of
purchases "account" that could be used as a credit towards the
purchase of a new bike.

Yesterday I dropped by the dealer to pick up an oil filter and thought
I might as well sign up for the new program. I was more than a little
surprised to hear it would cost me a one time fee of $79.95 to sign
up.

WTF? Did I miss that in the provided link?

So I am to give them eighty bucks for the privilege of getting a 10%
discount on parts, labour and accessories. Considering my first
$800.00 worth of purchases would rebate my own money I am thinking
this is not much of a deal. My sense is it will also end up being
counter productive in that those like me not seeing any value added,
will likely shop elsewhere.

I suppose if I was getting a few thousand dollars worth of service
done I'd cough up the eighty bucks, but recognizing the dealer offers
this discount I might just try to negotiate the price down.

I tell ya, as a marketing move this one puzzles me.

By the way, I kinda expressed similar thoughts with the parts guy. He
responded with a shrug of the shoulders and a non committal stare. I
also inquired why they marked up their parts and accessory prices over
the HD/Deeley suggested retail, and the prices charged at many other
Harley dealers. Hs reply was even more puzzling. He told me since
their dealership was larger than most others and had three warehouses
they had to charge more to cover the overhead. I summarized for him,
"You have to charge more because you are bigger?" He said yes and
added Deeley can sell for less because Deeley gets all of their money.
As Deeley is the distributor for HD in Canada there is probably some
truth in that.

So I guess I will have to check out Kanes and see what their pricing
policy is. I'd rather not deal with them. Going back a couple of
decades it has been rumoured the principles of Kanes had club ties and
there has been two very suspicious fires at the place. The second fire
was in 2000 and happened shortly after Kanes ran out of money to
refurbish a hotel they had just purchased.

Ah hell I can always go to Red Deer to buy my oil filters. It's only
an hour and a half away.
--
Don

http://www.actualriders.ca/casualcruise2009.htm
2004 Road King
2000 Yamaha Venture MM Edition

 



<snip interesting stuff>

You know, HOG members in CHAPs doesn't half sound homo-erotic ;-)


--
BMW K1100LT  Ducati 750SS  Honda CB400F  Triumph Street Triple
Suzuki TS250ER  Coo, down to just five bikes!
If you don't know what you're doing, don't do it. And RTFM.
chateau dot murray at idnet dot com

 

actual.ridernospam@telus.net says...

If you followed the link at the bottom of the page you would have seen
that the 10% covered the Benefit User Team Tariff Ledger Entry Service
Subsidization.  Of course you must add this to the Calgary Harley
Advantage Program.

 

Calgary wrote:

My local HD/Buell dealer has had a similar program for about 4 years
now. But it certainly doesn't cost me $80. It's free. And I still get
about 10%-15% my parts purchases(depending on the parts guy I see).

 



I can save you some research.
Both Kanes and Red Deer have the same pricing and "discount".
I talked with both parts managers in Feb.

--
Bob Mann

Cap'n, ah need moor pow'r.