UK motorcycle dealerships face continued challenges
A dry summer definitely helps, but running a motorcycle dealership in the UK definitely isn’t easy.
We’ve all had the experience of standing in a motorcycle dealership, sizing up the sales person and thinking: “How much can I get out of this? What kind of deal can I make on this bike?”
When we do this, we naturally assume that the dealership is flooded with money - that everyone who works there lives in a big house on a big hill, rides a different bike each day, and has no idea what it’s like to be the sort of person who owns just one nice shirt for weddings, funerals, and job interviews.
But, of course, this is woefully inaccurate. Running a motorcycle dealership these days is harder than it’s ever been. We were reminded of this fact this week when we spotted a small news item in the Reading Chronicle. It observed that the property formerly housing the LIND Group’s Reading Harley-Davidson dealership is still empty after roughly 10 months.
The dealership shut abruptly in September last year, amid one of the most tumultuous years for dealerships in recent memory. When you look at the cost of leasing the property, you can start to understand why.
According to the Reading Chronicle, use of the 9,368 square-feet property will set you back a cool £14,167 per calendar month. Or £170,000 a year.
That is a lot of money. Think about how many Harleys you would need to sell just to pay the rent. Never mind the costs of keeping the lights on and paying employees and stocking the tea caddy for every time some old boy shows up to sit on a bike and say things like: “It’s not as comfortable as my ZZR1400…”
LIND Group closed two Harley-Davidson dealerships last summer, as well as a BMW dealership earlier in the year. It was not alone. More than a dozen dealerships closed their doors across the country in 2024. Some were independent shops; many were part of larger dealer networks.
In an article written for Visordown last autumn, Phil West observed that these closures were not necessarily a sign of a bad motorcycle market, but bad conditions for dealers.
“Overall sales remain strong,” he wrote. “[But] that disguises the fact there’s been a significant drop in big bike (751-1000cc) sales… and no prizes for guessing which produce the bigger profit margins.”
Additionally, consumers’ increasing willingness to buy things off the internet negatively affects traditional dealership models. Many brands have begun selling their bikes straight from their websites. Benelli, for example. In that case, technically you’re still buying from a dealer, but you’re not setting foot in a dealer’s expensive building, you’re not chatting with a sales person, and you’re not looking around the shop and thinking: “Actually, I’ll buy this more expensive bike instead.”
Meanwhile, as far as future occupants of the Reading site are concerned, it’s unclear at the time of writing whether another brand will turn the showroom into a dealership again, or if the property will be bought by a non-motorcycle business.
Find the latest motorcycle news on Visordown.com
Chris Cope is a fourth-generation journalist, originally from Texas. He has lived in the UK for roughly two decades and has been writing about motorcycles for most of that time. He has written for dozens of publications and websites in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
