Emergence of direct selling via the Net.

• Author: CLAYTON, GRAHAM
• Position: Ducati motorcycles - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

A little over a year ago, on Jan. 1 of 2000 to be exact, the Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati took motorcycle marketing in a new direction. At one second after midnight Greenwich Mean Time it began taking customer orders for its first new model of the new millennium, the MH 900e. What was new in all of this was that customers could only buy the bike directly from the factory in Bologna, not from a Ducati dealership, and only via the Internet. The price tag for this limited availability model, of which only 1,000 units were to be built, was $15,000 US ($23,000 Cdn) Buyers would have to pay a hefty deposit electronically by credit card as one of the terms o sale.

The year 2000 planned production run of 1,000 MH900e machines sold on a first-com first-served basis in 20 minutes flat! The factory was then inundated with e-mails from people who couldn't get through to place their orders.

We are talking here about factory-direct selling globally of a big-ticket item without these of any traditional export intermediaries without any local marketing and sales campaigns and even without the need to have product in place for prospective buyers t view at local sales outlets.

How was Ducati able to do this, and what are the possible implications for exporting?

First of all, it is important to recognize that Ducati produces a prestige brand-name product line. It is a relatively small volume builder that sells on the basis of design, performance and exclusivity in the upscale end of the motorcycle market. It also selected a limited edition special model as the: vehicle to test its new online direct-selling approach. One that had been built as a special design exercise and then had been shown at a number of top international motorcycle trade shows to gauge customer interest in taking the model to production. Essentially, it knew that it had a sales winner up front.

Does this mean that Ducati's experience was a one-off deal? Perhaps, but probably not. There are many manufacturers around the world that produce recognized brand-name quality products in relatively small volume that sell in large part on the basis of product and company...