This is the first edition of AMD that we have been able to produce since finishing February the week before going to Louisville , Kentucky , for the ( excellent ) Drag Specialties and Parts Unlimited NVP Product Expo . I mention this just in case you think that only just now seeing our review of that show is a tad ' off '. It isn ' t because we are lazy or disorganized ( well , maybe I personally am prone to being a little bit disorganized ) but , with an additional subsequent trip to Las Vegas for ( the fast improving ) AIMExpo , and catch-ups still in play with International Dealer News ( following most inconvenient final quarter 2022 scheduling and event clashes ), it only needs a couple of weeks of bumps in the road and we can still be unwinding the impact some months later . However , if a couple of weeks is a long time in Publishing ( and Politics !), then it is equally true that a couple of months can be a long time in Economics . Since I last tried to share what I see of the market ' s fortunes through my idiosyncratic lens , the air has cleared , the clouds have parted , and to channel the great Jimmy Cliff , " I can see clearly now ." I had the great good fortune to see Jimmy Cliff live once in a nightclub on Long Island . Awesome ! Great music and lots of exotically scented aromas - just like in a Las Vegas taxicab ! First of all , retail price inflation in the United States finally peaked and has now started to ease . Not by much , but enough to encourage the Fed ( for now at least ) to slow down the rate at which it has been raising interest rates . Though mixed and unpredictable on a month-by-month basis , job market statistics in USA still point to low rates of unemployment , high rates of employment ( despite widespread retirements and voluntary workforce exits ) and high levels of unfilled vacancies - coupled to ongoing challenges to hire the right talent . Indeed , if anything , and as is the case in the UK and some other markets ( looking at you Japan ), tightening the spigot of immigration is actually holding economic growth back from where it might otherwise be headed . As the number of jobs filled and vacancies both climb , the inescapable conclusion appears to be that Fed policy is working , and while it may not be boom-time yet , the United States may well duck any kind of ' technical recession ' in the next 24 months . That isn ' t to say that everything in the garden is peachy , it isn ' t . There remain ' bigger issues ' that could rain on our parade at any time , and at short notice , and the powersports market has its own specific concerns too . Not least , as was aired at AIMExpo recently , the concern is that the thousands of ' new entrants ' who embraced on-highway motorcycles or off-road vehicles ( two and fourwheelers ) during the pandemic may now tire of their purchases , no longer feel the need to clutter the garage or driveway with their Covid-induced panic-buy , flood the used market and take their disposable income out of the market - out of dealership service departments , and out of the P & A and G & A markets in particular . Fortunately , the evidence for that is mixed so far . There is some of that happening , but with sales doing okay last year ( in Europe ) and continuing to do well overall in North America , the other issue that the pandemic wind-down throws into focus is " what now ?" vendors will take that
Where do we find the tens of thousands of buyers we need annually to keep the prior growth moving in at least a somewhat net overall gain direction ? Who will those buyers be , what will they want to buy , how will they want to buy , what will be their ( much changed ) attitude towards the ownership and riding experience - how do we generate the door swings we need and how do we smooth and schmooze their way to the card swipe and credit app ? More " questions than answers " at this stage ( oh hello , who let Johnny Nash into the room ?). What was encouraging about AIMExpo was seeing the questions being asked and attempts being made to develop answers . What with the pandemic and everything else , it feels like it has been a long time since the market was addressing the right issues en masse . Indeed , it feels like it has been a long time since we have had a viable and sustainable platform through which we could address the issues . While AIMExpo still has a long way to go , and it is unlikely to ever manage to speak ' Custom ' convincingly - indeed there was precious little there that addressed the mainstream of the street bike / on-highway sector at all - it was a much-needed reproof of concept in terms of the value and importance of an independent , all-players trade nexus . Congrats to the MIC ' s show team ! However , maybe the MIC could look at establishing an AIMExpo East to complement Las Vegas . They ' ve been there before of course , at Columbus , Ohio , but how about resurrecting the market ' s spiritual show home at Cincinnati ? Whilst I am not for one moment suggesting that anyone should compete against the two Midwest LeMans shows - that is not the point here at all , we need strong distributors and their shows - I do firmly believe that there is a place for both . Company and independent shows both have their value . If the MIC wants to get serious about including all the nation ' s dealers ( and vendors ) in the dialog , then it cannot expect to do so by being in the Southwest alone . The contagion from the United States ducking any kind of formal recession is significant . We are already seeing ripples from that starting to raise expectations here in Europe , even in the UK . Continental Europe is now daring to believe that while the next 24 months may not be much better than ' flat ' - in and of itself that is a lot brighter prognosis than the one that was feared as recently as six months ago - and better than the one that the IMF has been selling . Equally , the big take-away from Louisville was that for 2023 , as elsewhere , ' Flat ' will be the ' New Black ' in aftermarket terms in the United States . By-and-large , vendors were in agreement with that and , under the circumstances , would be mostly glad to take that for now .
Robin Bradley
Co-owner / Editor-in-Chief robin @ dealer-world . com
4 AFTERMARKET MOTO DESIGN - MARCH 2023 www . AMDchampionship . com