VespaUSA seems to be continuing their abandonment of the boutique, and minimizing their once-strict dealer requirements, as more and more Vespa shops appear in unlikely places. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that a Vespa dealership has opened within a print-shop in northern Kentucky, across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati. The new store currently has no dealer license, so sales and service are handled through an Ohio motorcycle dealer, Midwest Power Sports, in Batavia, an eastern suburb of Cincinnati.
Neither shop is listed on VespaUSA’s site, nor do they appear to be part of the Vespa Ohio franchise that includes Vespa Cincinnati (in Blue Ash, northeast of town), Vespa Cleveland, and Vespa Akron. The Kentucky and Batavia shops, as well as a new dealer in Medina (south of Cleveland) seem awfully close to Vespa Ohio’s turf. Vespa Cincinnati, less than 20 miles away, must be excited to read in the paper that, “There must be a need in the intercity area. There are only one or two scooter stores in town, and they only sell Japanese scooters.”
Elsewhere in Ohio, dealers can be found in Columbus and rural New Philadelphia. While this expansion trend is likely infuriating some dealers who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on real estate and advertising, it’s good to see PiaggioUSA finally treating the Vespa as a motor vehicle rather than jewelry.
pretty sure vespa cincinnati has closed its doors
we also have one of the best genuine dealers around, in metroscooter
Reeally? This is sounding an awful lot like Chicago…
I have been impressed with Metroscooter from what I saw during the WKRP rallies.
This sounds like Vespa’s m.o. of old. Signing up a new dealer down the street and then selling them bikes way cheaper than their dealer that they have had for years.
I think the proof is in the pudding! If Vespa were to declare just how many Vespa dealers have 1. gone out of business altogether, 2. sold out at least once, and likely more than once, and 3. announce the number of vespa stores currently available for sale, you’d begin to see a pattern thats completely telling of the kind of operation Piaggio USA really is. Need I say more!
z
Excuse me ctrentxyl,
maybe you have your wires crossed about the Cincinnati Store, BECAUSE ITS STILL OPEN, and having the best month its EVER had, I also love the shameless promotion of Metroscooter.
The other thing I’ve been hearing is that Vespa is out of business altogether, which is again, hilarious, they just went public in Italy and the stock is worth waaay more than they had expected.
I love it when people just need to hear themselves talk, or make stuff up because they really have nothing to say.
And Zephyrman, The first two boutiques in the USA are still in business. If you looked at Ford, or Chevy or Honda and saw how many of their dealerships have gone out of business, or sold more than once, you would see how many of them have gone out of business, or sold more than once. And no, please don’t say more.
Wow, jealousy makes for bitter folks doesn’t it.
If you would like you can call the Vespa Cincy Store at 513-891-3661
Or if you would like to talk with me about how Vespa is doing you can call me at our Cleveland store. 216-292-7530
thanks so much for listening and only posting the facts. (ctrentxyl, zephyrman)
Larry Riley
(love ya beeb, I know you can’t control all of the posts on here and you are a freedom of speech man. Thanks for the wedding gift too!)
Larry, you sexy hunk of whatever you’re made out of (weck?)
I’ve been meaning to call you, I’ve been meaning to do a lot of things. Glad to know VofO is alive and well. I don’t suppose you can comment on your new local competitor…
To be fair to Z-man, Vespa’s dealer problems have been well documented (I was recently given some astounding quotes from what sounded like a mostly-unpleasant dealer meeting last December, which I’ve been meaning to post. I’ve been meaning to do a lot of things.) By my calculations, things were not looking good for PiaggioUSA this time last year, but it does seem like it’s turned around somewhat (thanks to gas prices, mainly, hooray). I think it’s fair to say that some of the early dealers were put in a hopeless position, luckily not all of them were. It seems (by necessity) that Piaggio has relaxed their dealer requirements to allow dealers (at least moreso than before) to create a situation that serves their market best, and that seems to be an improvement and it seems like Vespa of Ohio was one of the first dealers to launch under these conditions.
I’m made of green cheese, by the way.
Actually all three of our locations are “Boutiques” and opened under those somewhat expensive and stringent agreements. We are actually feeling a bit burned by the Powersports Vespa dealers.
The Gas “Crunch”(?) excuse, is used mainly by folks whose spouses didn’t want them to spend the money on a “toy” and now they can rationalize such purchase.
As far as the new local competitor goes, we really haven’t felt their effect on us yet. June, July and so far August have been record months for us, in both the sales and service departments. We have been around for 3.5 years approx, and are still in our infancy, so growth, not to down play the tremendous amount of work and time we put in, is somewhat inevitable.
We were one of the last “Boutique” dealers to open. Yes, promises were made, some fulfilled, some broken, we are still sticking to our guns, though, and
we know that our customers, both present and future, enjoy dealing with a dealership that only deals in Piaggio products, we have an energy here that cannot be duplicated by a store that carries 5-10 different makes and brands.
Each of us here, owns and rides Vespas, They are our hobby, profession, livelihood and topic of conversation with 80-90% of the adult human beings we encounter.
And that my friends is why and how we have been successful.
Seacrest out.