Why are they closed on Mondays ?

[Rudyjo]

In both my personal life and in reading articles in magazines, it appears that almost everyone in the motorcycle business is closed on mondays.

Is there a logical reason for this?

[lkchris]

So they get a 2-day weekend.

Sales activity was once noted as pretty low on Mondays, too, I imagine, but that must have been a long time ago.

It's funny here in ABQ as the bike dealer is the car dealer and they're at the same location and the bike dealer works 5-day weeks and the car dealer works 6-day weeks.

[TomBarnhart]

Most frequently quoted explanation: In the good old days everyone rode on Sunday so HD dealers stayed open to service the breakdowns and sell to the shoppers. They needed Monday to relax and count the money.

[tommcgee]

My local Honda/Suzuki dealer is open on Monday.

[oldnslow]

Race on Sunday, closed on Monday!

[flyrider]

My BMW dealer closed Sun and Mon. I don't blame them. Gives them a weekend day and a weekday day off. Weekend to be with family...weekday to ride without dealing with the weekend warriors, which around here means a lot of trucks hauling boats to the local reservoir (and which happens to be on one of the nicest long canyon roads around), and weekend riders who ride the twisties on hyperbikes in short pants and flip flops.

[David13]

Tradition. Custom. I don't know about you guys, but if you ever use barber shops, it used to be that they also closed on Monday.
Same thing maybe. People want a haircut on Saturday but seldom Monday, maybe.
I think in terms of a recreation item, motorcycle, boat, atv, snowmobile, etc., they buy on Saturday.
dc

Long Beach BMW motorcycles is open Mondays, maybe Irv Seaver, also.

[oldnslow]

I asked a friend who owns a Yamaha/Suzuki dealership why it is. He saids he keeps it that way because being open only 5 days a week, (can't sell motor vehicles on Sunday in Missouri anyway), every employee is there everyday they are open. So, no chance of getting the 'he's not working today, what can I do for you' rersponse when customers ask for a particular salesman. Also, no chance of 'the guy who messed up the order is off today' kinda things in the parts department.

Every employee, there every day, makes for a good chance that empoyees will recognize loyal customers too!

[mika]

All of the above and some more is my guess. What is the extra staff required to cover the extra hours? How much do they cost? Will the sales gained on Monday, if any be worth it?

[R1200RClassic]

drives me nuts frankly because it always seems to be a Sunday or Monday when I want to get something.... the entire city of Portland bike and even accessories stores are closed those two days.. Seems to me if they just hired a couple of part timers they could stay open 7 days and probably reduce their overhead costs.. I can see not wanting to work more than 40 hours a week (as is typical in car sales), but there is a solution and I'm sure they'd sell enough to pay those part timer wages and likely crap benefits package.

[Rudyjo]

I found out about this 4 years ago when I started riding again after a 30 years layoff.
I was living in a small town at the time and was looking for a helmet

I made the 190 mile round trip to the nearest big city where I knew there were a number
of M/C dealerships and M/C accessory stores. I made the mistake of going on a monday, every one of them was closed.

I would guess that there are a lot of people who only ride on the weekends, if they had a problem, they would want to stop in on Monday after work to pick up a part.

It's interesting that you can't buy a motor Vechicle on Sunday in Missouri. You would think that the weekends would be when they would sell the most vehicles.

[69ZEFF65]

Race on Sunday, closed on Monday!

Yup I'm from New England area and that was always the reason given for the Monday closing. They had to let the shop mechanic get a little rest and get the race bike cleaned and ready for service sometime during the week and most shops didn't want to be bothered with retail customers or routine repair work for the same.

[arthurdent]

Race on Sunday, closed on Monday!

I had always heard it as "win on Sunday, sell on Monday". That may have been for auto racing, though. Don't know the truth of this version ,but dealers closed on Sunday is because rural dealers were getting a lot more sales when city folk could come to the country on their day off. Thus the city dealers persuaded legislatures to pass laws banning vehicle sales on Sunday.

Barbers and bakers are also usually closed on Mondays fwiw.

[crazydrummerdude]

I'd heard it was just a tradition from a mixture of some sort of non-compete agreement and blue laws from back in the day.

[osbornk]

I like the Sunday and Monday closures better than the way small town businesses around here did before the big box stores arrived. Most of the stores in town closed at noon on Wednesday for the day so they could be open on Saturday mornings with the same employees and without paying overtime. Most of the downtown stores still close at 5:00 PM and wonder why their sales are low.