Royal Enfield is facing lots of hurdles and finding it very difficult to sustain their own legacy, after registering a huge downfall in sales and revenues when compared to the iconic sales number of 2018. The brand is now revamping their marketing and distribution channel and now they are gearing up to open 350 studio outlets with a main goal to tap the rural indian market. The 12-20 units per month of sales target, along with just 500 sq.ft of the total area will encourage new distributors and dealers with a decent amount of capital to join the Royal Enfield family. The 225 sq.ft of the area will be dedicated to the display space while remaining will go into the service and spares area. The brand currently has 825 dealers in India and 42 international stores across the globe.
South African Cricketer Jonty Rhodes visits a Royal Enfield Store in Colaba
The Chennai-based two wheeler manufacturer resitered a 13% decrease in its general deals in the final quarter of a year ago, and now it is currently planning on a strategy to revive its market share and sales.
The number of dealerships is estimated to touch the 1100 mark by the end of 2019. The brand has never made any efforts to enter and peneterate the rural market in India with a dedicated studio outlet plan and unlike other brands, they have a dedicated fan following across the rural areas of the country. The one-sixth size will bring down the operational cost, keeping the initial real estate investment low and still, allow a decent number of product displays. As this decade will soon come to an end, the brand is building itself for strong presence for the next 10-year term that will be full of surprises.
Lalit Malik, Chief Financial Officer of Eicher Motors, stated, “The new studio outlets, which would be introduced in the country zone, would have 225 sq ft of retail space and 275 sq ft of workshop territory. The organization would include 80 standard configuration stores in 2019. Right now, Royal Enfield has 825 stores in India while the worldwide outlet number stands at 42.”
“These studio outlets will be one-6th the size of a run of the mill Royal Enfield showroom in a metro. We don’t anticipate that these little stores should sell more than 12-20 bicycles for every month. This is our first country raid in India. Under our enormous appropriation push, we mean to contact 1,100 towns through 1,350 stores this year,” he included.
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The brand will first shift from BS4 to BS6 during the next couple of months and after that they will be soon introducing better versions of their own bikes. They could phase out the 499cc engine in favour of the 648cc motor as the primary sales-driving part will still be the 346cc engine. Breaking the 350cc barrier will bring more taxes to them and thus, future depends upon two engine segments for sure. The Himalayan could shift to the bigger 648cc platform while Bullet, Classic, and Thunderbird names would rule the 350cc segment. The studio outlets will initially focus more on three motorcycles.