‘Its the perfect socially distanced way to travel’
Used motorcycle sales are booming as bikers emerge from the lockdown, eager to make the most of the great weather or simply to get from A to B without using public transport.
Paul Coulter, Marketing Director at SuperBike Factory, the UK’s largest used retailer, said: “Trade has more than bounced back in the last few weeks. We’re doing extremely well, it’s very, very strong. “Since showrooms have been allowed to open we’ve had a release of pent-up demand coupled with good weather and I also think there’s a demand for bikes which is new this year purely because of the coronavirus – people not wanting to commute on trains or buses or the underground… “I think the main thing is the good weather, the clear roads and people wanting to enjoy the experience. Motorcycle riding is the perfect social distancing way to experience travel. “We’re significantly up on last year but we’re also a different animal to last year so it’s very difficult to compare. Our showroom could hold 700 bikes last year, now it’s 1000, so it’s a very, very different environment, plus there’s a different website, there’s a different way of transacting and so on.
“The future’s looking really good. We’re really optimistic. We’re only a couple of weeks in, but the trajectory we’re on is following where we were prelockdown.”
MCN has seen a huge rise in traffic to the Bikes For Sale section of motorcyclenews.com, too. Visits were up 44.8% in April, compared to April 2019, 21.3% in May and a healthy 31% up in the first half of June, compared to the same period last year.