Just ordered a Vader

[culcune]

American Lifan is planning to make a comeback via dealerships as we speak. Loosely, that is what SSR is doing, but if you look around, you can find some of their bikes via mail-order. RPS, who are most famous for the Hawk, but have added a slew of product, has dealers, and is looking for more. To me, Bashan, based on their line of enduros, could be sold via dealerships (and are), rather than mail-order; I mean like a specific Bashan dealer, rather than a random place selling a bunch of Chinese products, that currently exist. To me, the distributors could start reining in their products simply by encouraging branding via signage. I mean, a Bashan sign, for instance, outside a mom and pop powersports dealer might start instilling a bit of confidence in people. I believe that Taotao should consider the same. Ok, MORE hijacking over

[jsumd]

Originally Posted by culcune

American Lifan is planning to make a comeback via dealerships as we speak. Loosely, that is what SSR is doing, but if you look around, you can find some of their bikes via mail-order. RPS, who are most famous for the Hawk, but have added a slew of product, has dealers, and is looking for more. To me, Bashan, based on their line of enduros, could be sold via dealerships (and are), rather than mail-order; I mean like a specific Bashan dealer, rather than a random place selling a bunch of Chinese products, that currently exist. To me, the distributors could start reining in their products simply by encouraging branding via signage. I mean, a Bashan sign, for instance, outside a mom and pop powersports dealer might start instilling a bit of confidence in people. I believe that Taotao should consider the same. Ok, MORE hijacking over

To me, in a way, I feel like something will be lost when china bikes become standard in dealerships. There is something to be said for the kind of "underground" feeling of it all....except for waiting 7 days with no order update at all

[BlackBike]

Originally Posted by culcune

American Lifan is planning to make a comeback via dealerships as we speak. Loosely, that is what SSR is doing, but if you look around, you can find some of their bikes via mail-order. RPS, who are most famous for the Hawk, but have added a slew of product, has dealers, and is looking for more. To me, Bashan, based on their line of enduros, could be sold via dealerships (and are), rather than mail-order; I mean like a specific Bashan dealer, rather than a random place selling a bunch of Chinese products, that currently exist. To me, the distributors could start reining in their products simply by encouraging branding via signage. I mean, a Bashan sign, for instance, outside a mom and pop powersports dealer might start instilling a bit of confidence in people. I believe that Taotao should consider the same. Ok, MORE hijacking over

To a dealer with a sharp eye for proper set up, I think these bashans and hawks could stand tall.

[veezx20]

Jsumd its here bro!

[BlackBike]

Originally Posted by phager76

I hope you didn't think I was implying you were being overly impatient (Tone and meaning are such a hard thing to convey in text) so I hope I didn't offend. My point (for clarification) is that, like it or not, we live in an instant gratification world. Thanks to Amazon, and now WalMart, two day shipping, Sunday delivery, and rapid processing are the norm and the trend will just continue.

Companies live and die on their online reputation, and these China Bike dealers that can't meet the needs of the client base, are going to wither and die as forums like this one expose poor customer service, lengthy delays and lapses of communication. I really hate to see a small company go under, and I'd love to see powersport max and other companies that are providing a substandard service turn things around and start taking care of the customer and thrive. I think we're on the edge of a renaissance in the Chinese motorcycle industry. I'm seeing a lot of parallels between the CBs of the last 5 years or so that I've been looking into CBs and what I've read of Honda and other Japanese manufacturers of the early 60s. I'd say in the next 5-7 years we're going to see a lot more CBs on the road, with a larger dealer network here in the US, Quality levels will continue to go up (See CSC) and after sale support will no longer be an afterthought (Pardon the pun). We're the pioneers of this new age, and sadly that means we also have to bear the brunt of the current growing pains we see in the industry.

Wow, I went off on a bit of a tangent there, sorry for the threadjack

Off the rails and back again...you did good

[phager76]

Any update on your bike, jsumd? My two made it safe and sound, so when your's gets sent out, it should come safe and sound.

[jsumd]

Congrats bro! Looks good! Let me know how the assembly goes!

No nothing. My son has a stomach bug so I didnt call today. Going to do so first thing tomorrow.

[jsumd]

Since I'm at work I don't really have time to call until this afternoon but I sent another email before leaving this morning. I basically said they have had my cashiers check for 9 days (7 business days) and I haven't had any update at all on the status of my order other than short email responses. I also asked for a substantial update by this afternoon or I would start making phone calls to my bank.

There is no reason a company should keep someones money and not change the status of the order when they do so. They deposited the check (by what they say) three days ago. The check should already be cleared.

I'm really not happy with powersportsmax as far as customer service goes. When and if I get this bike I will not be using them for anything again.

[culcune]

I feel bad for pointing them out. They have been around for years, and shipping out in a timely manner and aftersales warranty issues are but two complaints we have heard regarding them. But, they do offer super-low prices. Boom! International is literally within a relatively few miles of them, and I doubt they are even picking up your bike in the first place, but rather drop-shipping, but over a week? Not in stock cannot be an excuse as veezx20's bike most likely was shipped from Boom!

[jsumd]

I think the biggest factor in the huge delay on mine is the cashiers check. However they have had it more than long enough. If you cant do any better than that dont have it as a payment option. My lesson is learned lol

[phager76]

I wouldn't necessarily blame the cashier check, jsumd. I paid by a card, and I had a 10 day lag time from submitting my order and actually receiving shipping information on my order (Paid on the 23rd and shipped on the 2nd). The only increase in delay is the time it took to send it to them.

Either way, it's completely unacceptable in this day and age to have this kind of lag between ordering and shipping. I would likely be more understanding of it, if they simply put on their site something to the effect of: "Due to our high volume if sales, orders may not ship for 5-7 business days". If they did something like that, at least there's transparency and you can make your decision as to what's more important, speed or price. I'd be willing to bet that their reviews would go up quite a bit just from something like that. But to blantantly say "Orders are shipped within 72 hours, typically in 24 hours" is a flat out lie, and that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

We'll soon see how bad the MCO process is, as I'm going to place the order for mine tomorrow (30 for notarized and 30 for express and another 30 for the daughters with out express), Hopefully I'm riding on the street before Christmas !

[jsumd]

Originally Posted by phager76

I wouldn't necessarily blame the cashier check, jsumd. I paid by a card, and I had a 10 day lag time from submitting my order and actually receiving shipping information on my order (Paid on the 23rd and shipped on the 2nd). The only increase in delay is the time it took to send it to them.

Either way, it's completely unacceptable in this day and age to have this kind of lag between ordering and shipping. I would likely be more understanding of it, if they simply put on their site something to the effect of: "Due to our high volume if sales, orders may not ship for 5-7 business days". If they did something like that, at least there's transparency and you can make your decision as to what's more important, speed or price. I'd be willing to bet that their reviews would go up quite a bit just from something like that. But to blantantly say "Orders are shipped within 72 hours, typically in 24 hours" is a flat out lie, and that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

We'll soon see how bad the MCO process is, as I'm going to place the order for mine tomorrow (30 for notarized and 30 for express and another 30 for the daughters with out express), Hopefully I'm riding on the street before Christmas !

I agree! It's not even the time that bothers me most, it's the lack of communication and letting a customer know what is going on. I've been looking at a pending order status since the 1st. Hopefully something will happen tomorrow but I'm really not thinking it will.

Yeah, I wonder how much longer we will be waiting on those mco's. Thing is they are just street bikes and there's not much else to be done with them until they are received. Most likely looking at a month from time of order to getting it legal.

[phager76]

Originally Posted by jsumd

Yeah, I wonder how much longer we will be waiting on those mco's. Thing is they are just street bikes and there's not much else to be done with them until they are received. Most likely looking at a month from time of order to getting it legal.

Yeah, ain't that the truth! I'm fortunate in that I live a bit out in the sticks, and there's a pretty good area I can put around on without much risk from police harassment. I'd like to commute on the Tao Tao occasionally, and I'm not making a 20 mile commute without plates! My regular commuter is a '16 Fiesta, so the fuel economy improvement is the big motivator, but it would be fun to show it off to my co-workers.

On a side note, my boss saw the video of Rhiannon on the coolster and wanted to know where I got it and how much it was. He's got 6 kids that are sharing an electric dirt bike and when he heard the price, he wanted to know more. I was really clear that the customer service there was piss poor, and order processing was really long. I also let him know that they do require a bit of mechanical aptitude (I do work for a computer firm after all). At least more people are joining the CB fold!

[jsumd]

A bit of a update on my end. The status of my order has changed to payment received on my account. It reads that payment is recieved and is being deposited and they are waiting for it to be cleared. This is marked as of today.

Here is the email I got back :

"Our accounting was on business trip and just came back
The MO was just deposited, now it is waiting for bank clearance
We will ship order earlier next week."

So, I guess they flat out lied to me about depositing my check 4 days ago. I gotta tell you guys, I'm pretty irritated about it. It's one thing to be vague and not helpful but I cannot stand lying. Especially when someone has over a grand of my money.

I'll be glad when this transaction is over.

[phager76]

Can't Like that post This is really one of the worst companies I've had to deal with. Having worked in the retail world for the last 20 years (And glad to be on my way out of it) I'll accept a lot of things from retail sales, but the one thing I can not tolerate is being lied to.

I submitted my MCO request, and the order confirmation kind of sums up their attitude towards transactions: "Your request has been submitted successfully. Confirmation # is XXXXX. We will deal with it as soon as possible." Oh, I'm so sorry, you have to "Deal" with me