Fort Worth, Texas based Tucker Powersports has moved to "protect the profitability" of its dealers in the face of the impacts of tariffs on Chinese made product sold under its own brand names.
"Following several initiatives targeted to generate profitable growth opportunities for our dealer customer base and to strengthen our ability to offer superior services to them, Tucker is announcing that it will increase the retail sales prices on goods sourced from China as of October 1st to offset the cost of tariffs on these products recently imposed.
"To protect the relationships with dealers, Tucker 'Exclusive Brands' will adjust their MSRP to maintain dealer margin. This step is another example of Tucker's commitment to its dealer partners. Tucker is in discussions with other brand partners whose products the company distributes to coordinate similar steps.
"The ongoing and looming tariffs have dominated the headlines of our media and trade journals across many industries for weeks. While tariffs reach rates in excess of 30%, the price increases we implement will not exceed half that rate," according to Alejandro Huerta, Tucker's Chief Financial Officer.
"Our exclusive, high-quality premium Tucker brands have strong market positioning to avoid significant change in demand as a result of the price adjustments," said Jim Barker, Tucker's Vice President of Marketing.
"Generating margin growth opportunities for Tucker dealers and strengthening Tucker's ability to serve our customers are our key priorities," stated Sebastian Bretschneider, CEO of Tucker Powersports. "We will continue to implement initiatives that protect and grow the profitability of our dealers and the powerful brands they provide their consumers."
Bretschneider emphasized that "profitability is the key criteria for any business decision we make for our dealer customers and Tucker. With that we combine a great passion for powersports and its enthusiasts with sound and logic business principles."
The company went on to say that it continues to focus on profitability with dealers and brand partners - "this is another way of following through with the commitment of protecting dealer margin for Tucker dealers."
Tucker says that it has posted a list of the affected products and part numbers for its dealers at: dealer.tucker.com