Sales Rep. in US to sell AVT (Go cart)

Re: [spiers] Sales Rep. in US to sell AVT (Go cart)

Thanks John for the helpful comments. You are right I have not modified the
ATV according to customer needs. I will explore the ATV clubs around this
area and hopefully have a change to talk to customers about about ATV. This
maybe limited because ATV are mostly used in rural/country areas.

***Ah, then you'll have to spend weekends in the woods with these good ol'
boys...***

The reason
I need an engineer is because the manufacturer in China are not highly skill
in making advance changes.

***then, is China the best place in the world to have ATV made to your
customer specifications?***

In the meantime, I was hoping that I can compete on price, in comparason to
the Japanese brands.

***Well, to compete on price you have to offer the same thing at a lower
price. You've said the Chinese engineering is not equal to the Japanese,
therefore you cannot compete on price because you haven't a product similar
to the Japanese to offer at a lower price. The is no compairson to the
Japanese products. What you are proposing to do is offer lower quality at a
lower price, which means you'll be going after a completely different market.
I suspect after you study this market you'll find they are people who do not
repair what is broken and don't pay what they borrowed to buy a product such
as you propose: less quality at a lower price.

More than half of the profits in the automative industry is in repair and
maintenance income; if there is no money there, you will never build a
network of dealers.

Now this is not to say you could not be successful selling Chinese ATV with
minor modifications. Say your new friends in the ATV clubs wished there was
a simpler ATV for a specific purpose (orchardists needing a longer, narrower
wheelbase ATV) which was actually quite simple to engineer, but not enough
market for the Japanese to go after. And where as Japanese ATV cost $2000 to
make and sells for $3000; your specialized orchardist ATV costs $500 to make
and sells for $2000. Although to the customer your ATV costs less, you
actually make more money. And the Japanese do not want this business because
the amrket is too small for them (but plenty big for you).

Actually, this is exactly what Honda Motor company did in the late 60's in
the USA to get into the market and compete with the likes of peugeot. Just
because your price is lower does not mean you are competing on price. In
this instance, the orchardist ATV is not competiing on price at all. Yes the
price is lower than other ATV's, but the orchardist ATV is not the same as
other ATV's, so there is no comparison on that point. Therefore there is no
competing on price. We are in fact competing on design, and charging a
premium price for the design.

I hope this makes sense... if not let me know.

John

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