Quote Originally Posted by CrazyCarl View Post
5) The wrong solution...
is to ask importers to do all that for you, which is exactly what they've done and still continue to do. It's almost as though they're waiting for a magical importer to come down out of the sky and say "I want to buy 50,000 of your bikes for sale nationwide and I will absorb all marketing, warehousing and distribution costs while using your factory's name."
And why would someone do that? You get all set up with distribution, warehousing, parts support, and marketing and...find the factory has cut another deal with someone else to sell the exact same machines! The other importer hasn't made the investment and has lower overhead, so they undercut you. This has already happened often enough in the American market that I can't imagine anyone investing serious money in the China bike business now.

But lets say it actually works and starts to take off. You've proved there's a market and money to be made. What then? It's not like you're offering something consumers can't get from anyone else. Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha build the same range of bikes in their factories in low cost manufacturing centers (China, India, Thailand, Brazil). This means they can match your product and price points, but they have existing infrastruture and great branding. All you've done is wake the sleeping giant.

Tom