Heated Grip DIY?

The trouble is that it will need a vast amount of cash to set up a dealership from scratch and Ducati will need to be convinced that it will be a viable business. The existing dealer is fiercely defensive of their business and will fight any attempt to take away business from them but they are attempting to cover a vast area.

Unfortunately the bulk of the business is in the central Glasgow/Edinburgh belt. There is a fair amount in Aberdeen and I'm sure there would be a lot more if there was a dealer there and it would be a huge benefit for the rest of us who don't live in the central belt.
An owner living in Thurso, right at the top of the country will need a whole day to get to Glasgow, stay overnight, a day in Glasgow while the bike is being serviced then another overnight stay before riding home again. You have to be really keen to buy a Ducati up there.
The dealer we have has unsuccessfully attempted to set up franchised service centres. They one they had in Edinburgh but it turned out to be a failure after they were let down by the owner of the premises, and having put a lot of cash into building a new Glasgow showroom/workshop they are not prepared to set up even a Service Centre in Aberdeen. They claim any increased income from extra sales wouldn't justify the expense. For them that may indeed be the case but what we really need is a new dealership altogether breaking the monopoly that Ducati Glasgow has on the Scottish market - but it's not going to happen

DucColin said:

@Derek Looking at there web site they appear only to sell Ducati (new bikes). That is limiting options. My dealer sells new Ducati, KTM, Kawasaki, Honda, Yamaha as well as the used stock and service centre. I'm not a business man but I would have thought that if someone opened a bike shop in Aberdeen, that sold other makes as well as Ducati they could do very well.

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I agree @DucColin but it seems that Ducati will only allow new dealerships to be a solus, Ducati only dealer, which to me seems bloody stupid. They seem to be more concerned with image than sales. Ducati Glasgow in fact are also a Triumph dealer but with Triumph Glasgow at the opposite end of the same building, with its own entrance so on the face of it it looks like 2 separate businesses. The workshop is split in two with Ducati in one half and Triumph in the other.
At the same time that Ducati Glasgow were looking to move to their new premises the dealer in Renfrew fell out with Triumph and withdrew his business leaving Triumph without an outlet in the West of Scotland, their biggest market here. Ducati Glasgow saw the opportunity to move in there and took on the Triumph franchise giving them a bigger market share to help finance the new building. Ducati allowed this but insisted on the separation of both sides of the business as I have described above. Upstairs is a communal cafe from which you can walk from the Ducati side into the Triumph one and vice versa.
Shirlaws in Aberdeen were for many years a Ducati dealer but around 2003 they ceased to be a dealer and became an official service centre but after a year or so they packed that up too. I don't know what the reasons behind all this were. Shirlaws are a multi-franchise dealer and it may be that Ducati wanted them to have a separate showroom for Ducatis, or even another building. Who knows? But it may not be coincidental that this was at the same time that Ducati Glasgow started up.
Sorry this has gone somewhat off topic.