NMDA Dealer Attitude Survey Spring 2020 results revealed

“The NMDA is pleased to see that 2020’s Spring Dealer Attitude Survey attracted a 20% response rate from ten brands, which is slightly higher than Autumn 2019 despite being conducted just as the UK was placed into lockdown. 77% of respondents were independent dealers with 23% privately owned, and 71% were single-brand dealers with 29% multi-franchised,” said Stephen Latham, Head of the National Motorbike Dealers Association (NMDA), commenting on the results of the latest Dealer Attitude Survey.

The NMDA Spring 2020 Dealer Attitude Survey published today (29 May) gives an indication of how dealers view the major issues that are currently affecting them, and how these change over time. It also gives dealers and their manufacturers an idea of the balance of opinion held on a range of views within their networks.

When asked about the overall value of their franchise, the average score of all respondents was 5.6/10, down from 6.2 in Autumn 2019:

• Ducati, Triumph and Royal Enfield were the top 3 brands on this metric
• The bottom three were Harley Davidson, Piaggio Group and Kawasaki

Dealers were asked about how realistic their target and performance related bonus in terms of achievement, with an average of 3.0/5. Ducati dealers were by far the most receptive to this, with a score of 4.6. In terms of the dealers new motorcycle target negotiating process, Ducati were also top with a score of 4.3 against an average of 2.7.

Dealership partnership with their manufacturers and the ability to do business with them has remained stable, maintaining an average of 3.4:

• Piaggio Group dealers have, for the fourth survey in a row, been the most dissatisfied with their partnership. Their score remained at 2.4.
• Royal Enfield dealers were the most satisfied, with a score of 4.4, with Ducati close behind with 4.3.

In terms of satisfaction of dealer profitability, the average response was 2.5, down from 2.7 in Autumn 2019, with Triumph dealers feeling most satisfied with a response of 4.0. When looking at future profitability, the average score was 2.6, again down from 3.0 in the previous survey. Ducati had the top score on this category with 4.0, with Royal Enfield and Triumph making up the top three.

Another key question was the standards expected of dealers by manufacturers, and how realistic these standards are.

• The average score of standards expected of manufacturers was 2.8, with Ducati and Royal Enfield close in top scores with 4.3 and 4.2 respectively.
• Royal Enfield dealers felt these standards were the most realistic with a response of 3.8. Kawasaki dealers gave the lowest score on this metric of 1.8.

Dealers were also asked about the management of their manufacturers, and whether they take dealers views and opinions into account. Ducati once again topped this category with 4.0, with the average being 2.9. Most dealers were under average on this category, however, with Harley Davidson scoring 1.4 and Kawasaki 2.0 among others.

Latham continued, “The twice-yearly NMDA Dealer Attitude Survey is valuable in giving direction on trends and attitudes in the industry. These often move around dependent on the opinion of dealers rating new models, profitability, product supply and relationships with their brand and its policies. This can often change over a few surveys as one issue or another takes precedent.

“This is the first time that Royal Enfield have taken part in the survey and their results were the most interesting.

“We were also both very pleased and surprised that we had such a good response for dealers considering the survey was carried out at a time that business was on hold due to the pandemic. This was helped by a bigger percentage than normal completing the survey online.”