During COVID, freight surcharges in the powersports industry struck with lightning speed. First it was on vehicles, then parts, and then on everything. While these costs may have had some legitimacy during the height of the pandemic, and the ensuing supply chain SNAFUs, this “cure” is now killing business for Dealers as the costs were never rescinded… instead they continue to be passed on to consumers. The National Powersports Dealer Association has issued a position paper on this state of affairs … and a call to action for the entire powersports industry that failing to sunset these costs NOW will be seen by our customers as overreach.
"Listen to the news for an hour, and you’ll hear a story about how tired of additional charges consumers have become," says lead author and latest NPDA Board Member Mark Shefffield. It is not just powersports, unmitigated surcharges plague virtually every market. "Airbnb’s cleaning fees, Live Nation’s service fees, airline baggage fees… the list goes on. When Americans say they are being nickel and dimed to death, it’s not an exaggeration, it’s reality. Consumers are sick and tired of these charges."
It is a fact that a large percentage of the items that Americans use each day are produced overseas, and most of those products are shipped to this country in containers. Sheffield says it is also a fact that the container costs have come down to pre-pandemic levels. "As savings accounts have emptied and demand has slowed, supply chains have normalized, and the cost to ship a container around the globe has almost returned to pre-pandemic levels."
Founded in 2021, National Powersports Dealer Association's mission is to help the franchised and independent powersports dealer through special services, products, programs, education and advocacy of dealer views and concerns to create a professional, successful and profitable industry. To that end, NPDA believes it is time to sunset the surcharges. See their entire position paper here:
https://www.npda.org/_files/
