Honda Prices: What Was Up Goes Down
Honda Prices: What Was Up Goes Down
IN AN EFFORT TO LURE THE ELUsive new-bike customer back into its showrooms, American Honda has cut the prices of some of its motorcycles.
The most-significant reduction is on leftover ’89 Pacific Coasts, the new suggested price for which drops from $7313 to $5998. The suggested price of the ’90 version of the same bike drops from $7698 to $6498. Additionally, Honda has knocked $600 from the price of the 1990 CBR 1000, bringing its new suggested retail to $6998. The company cut $600 from the price of the ’90 CB-1, $565 from the price of leftover ’89 CB-1s, $300 from the price of 1990 CR500s and $500 from the prices of leftover 1989 CR250s and CR500s. Also reduced in price were the ’90 NS50, 89 and '90 XR250s and CR 125s, ’89 CR80s, and ’89 Pilots.
The reductions were made, according to Ray Blank, Honda s assistant vice-president of motorcycle marketing, on the heels of a change in the company’s marketing strategy. That strategy, developed last year, originally called for what Blank described as “expensive television advertising.” But at this year’s dealer convention, he said, dealers made it plain that lowering prices was more important than spending money for TV ad time.
Blank denied that prices were cut only on unpopular models, choosing to say, instead, that price reductions affected bikes that were in the greatest supply. “Lowering the price of our low-volume items is not worth the administrative work, and we’re not going to lower the price of something like the RC30. which we don't have any of,” he said.
Industry analyst Don Brown, of D.J. Brown Associates in Irvine, California, commented, “You have to give Honda credit for biting the bullet and trying to do something
about a difficult situation. Honda’s^ prices are higher than anybody else s across the board, so this has got to be viewed with some happiness by the dealers.”
But, added Brown, a motorcycle business veteran who in the early 1970s was vice president of national sales for BSA, the sales picture could remain bleak for Honda in spite of its price reductions. “It's a good gesture and the dealers are pretty happy about it, but most of the ones I've talked to don t think it’ll make much difference. I think we’re at a crossroads, heading towards a real effort to come into the market with motorcycles with morecompetitive prices that will better appeal to the casual audience. I think the sport motorcycle has become too intimidating for a lot of people. There’s a lot of question marks about this standard-bike concept, but look at the Miata sports car (a retro-styled runaway best-seller for Mazda). It’s uncomfortable and underpowered, but it’s so close to what people have conjured up in their minds as a personal sports car, it’s found an immediate audience.
Following that logic, Honda’s newly announced 750cc standard bike might be just what the doctor ordered to cure the company’s sales influenza. But as with a case of the flu, only time will tell.
Jon F. Thompson
