Ducati introduces Retail Concept at Ducati New York dealership

NEW YORK, NY, JAN 19 – Ducati North America (DNA) general manager Dominique Cheraki was taking a victory a lap around the island of Manhattan, and why not? The urbane Frenchman and former club racer was an integral part of the team that catapulted North America to the top spot on the Ducati sales chart. DNA announced an increase in year-to-year sales of 43%, with 2011 ending with 8989 Ducatis being sold in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

We met with Cheraki at Ducati New York, the DNA’s flagship dealership in the Chelsea neighborhood of lower Manhattan. Ducati New York hasn’t been a seamless success; it reopened over the summer after being closed at the end of 2010. And now it’s once again a showcase for Ducati’s Retail Concept, a reworking of the interior meant to enhance the customer experience.

“We wanted to take the momentum of those great results in order to launch our program, also because we just finished the work here a few weeks ago and it was time to unveil Retail Concept,” Cheraki said on a chilly day in New York City. “The idea behind it is really to create a nice environment” for both the shopping experience and service experience “which is very important also in our concept. Our program, we worked a lot on the showroom, but also a lot on service, service reception, which is integrated in the complete program. So the idea is to supply a full and premium experience for our consumer.

“The idea also for our design, if you look around at the material we use, the color we used, the idea is to let the product be the star of the show. That's the reason why we have a black matte surface on the floor, because we want the bikes to be the star of the show. And it's the same for the apparel and accessories. Through the program what we want also is to, I would say, to transmit, to give a good idea about the core value of the brand.” Cheraki continued that the sales numbers for the Multistrada and Diavel brought in “a lot of new consumers coming to the brand, because now they can find an adventure touring bike, they can find a kind of sport cruiser. The Monster is also buying a lot of a lot of beginners with the 696 coming into the family because it's easy bike, I would say. When it's your first bike it's a different approach.”

He added that “It's not only the product, it's also the technology, the design, the Italianness of the brand.”

Surprisingly the program began here in New York in 1997, but was later developed in Italy with a more complete first design around the year 2000. “We've learned a lot with the first program and now we came here in the US with the second version, which is very finalized and up to date,” Cheraki said.

To understand the flow of traffic, a dealership in Italy installed cameras, “and this was the school to create this program. So it's happening now in Italy and mainly it was with the support of an outside company, it has been engineered by our network development project.”

The process of converting a dealership takes three 24 hour days—the dealerships can’t afford to close down.

“We already know that we have 70% of the network which is already subscribed to the program, so we don't have a target date” for when the entire country will feature dealerships with the Retail Concept, Cheraki said. “The idea is that we’re going to be very busy in 2012.”

Dealerships have embraced the concept because, Cheraki says, “I think it's quite obvious that with all those new customers coming in the brand it's very important to improve on this part. And today the level of expectation from the customer, in general, is really a very high level.”