Las Vegas, NV – December 10, 2010 – MotorcycleCenter.com is pleased to announce that it has acquired TheHelmetZone.com, one of the top online sellers of motorcycle helmets, motorcycle jackets, and biker gear. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
TheHelmetZone.com had over 25,000 active customers who will now transfer to MotorcycleCenter.com, where they will have access to a much wider range of products, competitive pricing, and an overall more satisfying shopping experience. They will also have access to gear they were unable to purchase from TheHelmetZone.com like motorcycle exhausts, motorcycle tires, parts, and mens motorcycle jackets.
The staff that ran TheHelmetZone.com did an outstanding job and provided exceptional customer service, getting them one of the best customer service ratings and overall shopping experience rankings we’ve seen from a website in a while. It’s very impressive considering TheHelmetZone.com was able to achieve all this in less than 2 years. Their ability to acquire customers and maintain loyalty is inspiring, and we are sorry to see such a great competitor go.
Unfortunately, with the high cost of running an internet business and the ever increasing and changing technological demands, the burden and time needed to run the site was too much for the owners. The costs of marketing were going up while their sales either remained the same or dropped.
All traffic from TheHelmetZone.com is now being directed to MotorcycleCenter.com. The online landscape has been changing; these days it’s very hard to grow a business without a robust ecommerce solution and other new technologies needed to run a website effectively. MotorcycleCenter.com and other leading online motorcycle firms like LeatherUp.com and Motorcycle-Superstore.com invest very heavily in technology, expanding workforces, and marketing. It is tough for smaller firms to compete with these standards, making the acquisition by MotorcycleCenter.com the best logical step.
We are very excited to welcome all new customers to MotorcycleCenter.com where they can enjoy shopping brands like Cobra Exhausts, Tourmaster jackets, Gaerne boots, and Scorpion helmets, among many others they previously had no access to. This marks the second website that MotorcycleCenter.com has acquired in the last few months, bringing our customer base to well over 50,000 customers in a very short period of time. We are also currently in negotiations to acquire two other well-known motorcycle sites, each have over 40,000 customers and one has been in the business for over 10 years.
The other biker websites we are being offered try to keep up with the major online sites but do more harm than good, and find themselves in debt with ever expanding marketing budgets with lower and lower conversion rates. All is not well online; it’s definitely become far more challenging than ever to run an effective online shop, given rising costs. It’s challenging to even make a sale with so much competition from dominate sites like Amazon (launched a popular motorcycle category in 2008), LeatherUp.com, and Motorcycle Superstore, who are established and have strong customer loyalty, larger capital base, better website technology, and lower product cost due to being able to buy more product at discounted rates and passing the savings.
Another important factor is the cost of marketing. TheHelmetZone.com just over spent, simple as that. There need to be #2 or #3, or #4 on keywords over took what was prudent and what the site was actually capable of sustaining. We have seen that several firms who have contacted us were overspending on online advertisement. It’s almost like being at a casino waiting for an order. Now, we are picking up their customers at a fraction of the cost the firms spent on acquiring them. It’s insane when we see firms spend $20-30 to pick up one customer who spends $100. Then have to deal with the customer service, returns and exchanges. The motorcycle gear business has a high return rate for many segments; returned products which firms might or might not be able to sell can cause major financial hardship. It’s a recipe for failure we are seeing play out as the Internet matures and older and younger firms who were not on solid financial ground and did not kept their marketing expense inline are falling apart.
Given the state of the economy, the heavy investment needed to keep up with major players online is leading to the downfall of several key motorcycle sites. The competition online for motorcycle gear gets more and more furious daily; firms that can’t keep up end up going out of business. In a way this is a great windfall for us, helping boost MotorcycleCenter.com to the next level in a shorter period of time. We are hoping to capitalize on this trend and hopefully take over a few more sites that have spent years building a brand and customer base for pennies on the dollar.
About MotorcycleCenter.com:
MotorcycleCenter.com is a leading Motorcycle Gear store, selling motorcycle jackets, helmets, motorcycle tires, boots, and motorcycle parts. Over 100,000 products from hundreds of top motorcycle brands like Joe Rocket, HJC Helmets, at the best prices are available at MotorcycleCenter.com.
Contact Details:
Motorcycle Center
2620 S. Maryland
Suite #846
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Phone: (702) 336-8398
Email: shimsand@gmail.com
