A retail sales picture that changes from region to region

It’s more a slow ascending hill than a dramatic climb, but the improved retail performance continues for the industry, even in October, according to dealer data provided to us from ADP Lightspeed. But what’s more surprising than the gradual improvement in retail sales compared to earlier this summer are the dramatic differences we’re seeing in new unit sales by region. The average number of dealers who have seen an increase — in dollars, not volume — in new unit sales varies significantly by region.

For our same-store sales data that appears in each issue of Powersports Business, we break up the data in five regions: West, Northwest, Midwest, South and Northeast. The monthly data includes more than 250 V-twin and metric dealerships.

According to the October data, nearly half of the dealers in the Northwest have seen new unit dollars increase over the year-ago month. On the opposite side of the new unit spectrum is the South, where only 20 percent of dealers have seen an improvement over October 2008.

Care to guess where the other regions — the Midwest, Northeast and West — fall in terms of percentage of dealers who have seen an improvement in October over the year-ago month?

Share this

Related posts:

1. At least one retail sales drought ends
2. The worst place to sell new units in the United States?
3. What brand ranked No. 1 in annual retail sales practice survey?
4. Answering a question about Harley-Davidson sales
5. Identifying key preowned sales benchmarks