Thanks for your thoughts and replies, gents. I assumed there were other folks out there who have pondered and perhaps even fretted this issue. Many people in the US powersport industry would just as soon see the Chinese manufacturers hang themselves and are busy supplying rope.

My first-hand expirience with this started a few years back when a former US Customs guy started a joint venture with Qingqi here in the Milwaukee area. I visited the warehouse to answer a posting for an outside sales rep. The chaos and dissorganization was immediately apparent - but, I could see tons of potential. I never took the position, but I did befriend their mechanic and we are still good friends. He provided me with an excellent insiders view of what was and wasn't working. At the time I was working sales with a local Honda/Suzuki/Ducati dealership. Having access to those brands dealers manuals and comparing them to the new import business model became a personal project. Also, I figured that the future of powersport would belong to China.

Nobody can argue that Milwaukee doesn't understand manufacturing. We built the cranes that dug the Panama canal and were, at one time, the "machineshop to the world". Harley D, Briggs and Stratton, Johnson Controls are all still headquartered here. Sure, manufacturing is well past its prime here, but the lessons learned don't have to be learned over and over again. Lean manufacturing, just-in-time inventory and quality systems have come into play and are here to stay. The idea that a manufacturer should control, protect, and grow it's own brand seems to be ignored.

Bigdamo you're cetainly correct to identify "full back up of parts" as one of the big issues. It may even trump quality production - 'cuz people who buy bargain brands know that they may need to fix it themselves. They just need parts availibility and manuals to do so. Buckets of cash for marketing would be nice...but will come in time if a good foothold is established. Even Piaggio doesn't spend that much on marketing here in the US. But, you can be sure that they protect and nurture their brands. Price points are extremely important as well, and we are just seeing the first importers (ie. Qlink) trying to distinguish themselves from the pack with price and promises. But what consumer is going to be able to dissern the differences?

Now I deeply respect the entreprenuerial spirit that encourages people to make something from nothing, and risk it all for a shot at success. The strong will survive...but so will the crafty, the cheats, and the exploiters. A company has to have a strong moral compass to avoid the pitfalls of ill-gotten gains. Businesses with integrity must cling to the hope that "the truth will out" and consumers will vote with their dollars. Because, in a thoat-cutting contest, the winner is usually the best, most ruthless killer.

Crazy Carl, your response is well though out and well written. I can see you have passion and concern for the future of this issue. There can be no shame in wanting to create a few jobs along the way either. The big solutions may not come from competition and survival of the fittest, as life shows us that survival of the most cooperative is viable as well. Years ago I worked as a produce buyer for a large Organic Co-op. With good networking and benchmarking we were able to get many and different stores to join together and claim marketshare from much bigger competitors. Small farms could grow into multi-million dollar concerns once they knew they had a market. And the markets could rest secure that they would not be dropped or outbid for critical supplies. Cooperation works, but has to be kept very lean or everything gets decided by commitee...and that's slow and ponderous.

Many challenges have to be met for the Chinese Manufacturers to place their own distribution centers into foriegn markets. That risk will also bring the biggest rewards. Are these companies aware of how little percentage the end dealers makes when they sell a unit? I mean that when a traditional brand cycle or scooter goes out the door, the dealer makes just %15 of retail price. Distributors of Chinese bikes are making the lion share of profits, even if they allow their non-traditional dealers to make %30 or %40 mark-up. Traditional dealers are also handed freight fees, marketing fees, and even stocking-level quotas. Traditional brands also impose many other dealer restrictions, but still have businesses fighting to gain the brand.

In my opinion the first part of the puzzle to be fixed is parts availibilty. Tens of thousands of customers are already dissappointed and could be retained...if they could get parts and translated shop manuals. Traditional garages and freelance mechanics will continue to turn the alt-brand riders away if they have no easy access to support. I would think that even some of the developing countries customers would pay more for some access to parts. Perhaps a small number of warehouses worldwide could be shipping parts to all corners of the world and providing manuals in all languages.

We'll all be watching the Maxtra GP project and hoping for a real R+D effort.

Thanks again, Peej