With competition on the rise in the scooter retailing arena, it has grown harder for many home care equipment providers offering the three- and four-wheeled mobility products to achieve what might be considered genuine success.

But some dealers who have hit paydirt with scooters insist it is not all that difficult to emerge a winner. You just need the right approach to selling.

Take, for instance, Mobility Express, a DME provider that now derives 40% of its revenues from scooters. Launched 10 years ago with one store, the Holiday, Fla, dealer has since expanded to 20 stores and eight affiliated outlets, with two additional units slated to open by year’s end.

Mobility Express president Joe Rached explains how it happened. First and foremost, he says, the company did not allow itself to be distracted from its mission by the presence of competition, especially in the form of deep discounters on the Internet. The mission, he reveals, was to provide superior products and service, which, he adds, usually trump a rock-bottom price.

“We did everything to satisfy customers,” he says. “In our book, a satisfied customer is a repeat customer who will come back to you for trade-ins and product upgrades. They also tell their friends about you. Favorable word of mouth has contributed to at least a 15% increase in our sales every year.”

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Then you have Freedom Mobility Center Inc in North Carolina. Chief executive officer John Cotham set up shop in the growth-oriented small city of Mooresville, where he encountered only scant competition amid a lot of market demand ready to be tapped.

Like Mobility Express, Freedom Mobility Center has been successful because it is built on a solid foundation of strong customer service. Indeed, Cotham defines success in scooters as the degree to which the customer is satisfied.

“Satisfied customers are those who know you’re going to support them after the sale, that you’re going to provide products you’ll take care of and that will enhance their lifestyles,” he says. “You can’t just take an order over the phone or over the Internet and dump the product in the person’s lap.”

Cotham also sees as a sign of success that at least 50% of his scooter business is generated from paid advertising or impulse walk-ins, as opposed to visits sparked by a referral.

“If half our business comes from avenues other than word of mouth, then that tells me we’re doing a pretty good job of reaching out to the community.”

Cotham says that he spends about $10,000 a month on advertising, and a sizable chunk of that money goes to pay for commercials on local broadcast television, perhaps the priciest type of media you can buy—especially, if, like Cotham, you buy time on shows that draw large audiences, such as Oprah, Dr. Phil, and The Price Is Right.

“I like to advertise on those shows because the people watching are in my ideal target age and income groups,” he says.

Tips for Success
Rached and Cotham believe that a key to making it big with this product is to treat sales much as you would if the scooter were a power wheelchair instead.

“It’s important to understand the customer’s lifestyle and needs before steering them toward a particular scooter,” Cotham says.

Rached believes that prospective scooter owners need to understand that these mobility devices are not luxury items.

“They should be seen as a necessity that every physically challenged or elderly patient needs in order to make them mobile again,” he says.

Other tips for success in the selling of scooters include:

• Be supportive. Many people who need a scooter are reluctant to admit that fact to themselves, Cotham says. So when they finally are hectored enough by friends and relatives to drop by your shop, they may still have some distance to go before they are fully past their denial. As a result, you should expect them to be a hard sell. But do not be discouraged by that. The way to overcome their reluctance to buy is by treating them with exceptional kindness and concern. No high-pressure tactics. Cotham suggests going so far as to let the customer take the scooter home for a trial-use period—not just for a couple of hours but overnight or even an entire weekend.

“Once the customer sees how easy it is to operate and gets accustomed to having it in their home—which doesn’t take long—they’re going to be much, much more inclined to buy the scooter so they can keep it,” he says.

• Create a wall of testimony. Cotham posts on one very visible wall of his scooter showroom a big, glossy photograph of every one of his satisfied customers, depicting them with their new scooters (he does the same with customers for his power wheelchairs). This boldly telegraphs to shoppers the message that here is a merchant who can be trusted to deliver a square deal and a pleasing product.

“Pictures showing happy faces of real people make for a very powerful form of endorsement,” Cotham says.

• Put quality first. Avoid carrying cut-rate scooters; when it comes to quality, this is one product where you get what you pay for, Rached says.

“Never look for the cheapest scooter on the market because, in the long run, you will have to pay the difference in service, product failure, and replacement parts,” he says.

Rached also says that he prefers to select scooters from brand-name manufacturers because that way he is assured that he will have access to replacement parts if the product ever needs service.

• Less can be more. Cotham believes the benefits of having a strong relationship with just a few vendors outweigh those of carrying every make and model of scooter possible. He has an exclusive relationship with just a single vendor.

“You’re likely to get better pricing and more attention from the manufacturer if you’re dealing with only one company and they know that to be the case,” he says.

• Display the biggest selection of scooters you possibly can. While you may want to limit the number of manufacturers you deal with, that does not mean you should limit the number of scooter models you sell. If possible, carry your manufacturer partners’ full scooter lines.

The more product you carry, the more successful it makes you look—and the more successful you look, the more comfortable most people will be with the idea of buying from you, Cotham says. Accordingly, in his 2,600-square-foot showroom area, customers are greeted by as many as 15 scooters on the floor, all of them demonstrators.

Beyond the psychology involved in offering a big selection, there also are some practical ramifications of this merchandising strategy. “In order for customers to make the choice that will be the right one for their needs and lifestyle, we want to let them see and try out a lot of options,” Cotham says. “You can do that only if you’ve got a lot of product on the floor.”

Broad inventorying can be a huge strain on capital resources; that is the downside, but the load can be lightened with good pricing and terms from the manufacturer—another reason to form an exclusive relationship with just one or two, Cotham says.

• Inject drama into your displays. At Freedom Mobility Center, some of the scooters in the showroom are positioned on tilted risers. This causes the nose of each scooter to point up in the air at about a 30-degree angle and to lean its body to one side, giving the appearance that the scooter is a tough little machine that can surmount any terrain challenge the driver might be up against at home or while out doing errands.

The dynamic-looking pose also helps by lending energy and excitement to what otherwise would be a flat, lifeless row of scooters. Customers react very favorably to that and are more inclined to buy, Cotham says.

• Hit the street. In planning his store, Cotham identified a location blessed with much drive-by traffic. By his tally, some 30,000 vehicles a day pass on the boulevard out front. Cotham takes maximum advantage of that traffic flow by daily parking on the sidewalk a couple of his scooters to attract the notice of passing motorists—a sales tactic employed to much good effect by motorcycle shops, florists, and other types of retailers who want to entice people to stop in for a closer look.

“If people can’t see your product, you’re not going to have nearly as much sales activity,” he says. “If you’ve got a lot of traffic going by your store and you’re not displaying your products, you’re just not thinking straight.”

• Conduct scooter races. On one occasion, Cotham set up a racetrack in his parking lot and staged a well-publicized scooter race.

“It was a good way to not only expose people to the product but to encourage them to test-drive it and see how much fun it can be,” says Cotham, who adds that he made enough extra sales from that day to convince him that the event had been worthwhile.

While every business is unique, consider how these ideas could help your company fulfill its scooter sales ambitions. Who knows, with the right approach to selling, you could become the niche’s next 800-pound retailing gorilla.

Rich Smith is a contributing writer for Dealer/Provider.