How's the season been for you?

Indications appear to be that the independent dealer network is having a pretty good year. Do you agree?

I attended the third day of GGP's Dealer Conference at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham yesterday, where the atmosphere amongst both the manufacturer and the attendant dealers certainly seemed pretty buoyant.

GGP UK's md Duncan Martin, addressed the conference saying that the company had enjoyed its most financially successful year ever - breaking the £50million mark for the first time. An amazing achievement, but one which as Duncan pointed out, was only reached due to their dealer network. If the manufacturer is doing well, it should follow that so are its dealers.

Duncan reiterated what I've heard from various other sources that the season certainly started slowly this year, but then seriously picked up. He spoke of dealers reporting consistently good levels of sales, with monthly records tumbling all year.

And I spoke to dealers yesterday who were telling me that it's been incredibly busy in their showrooms these past few weeks, and that their workshops are booked up with service work right through to Christmas.

All the fears over what Brexit might do to consumer spending certainly don't appear to hit our industry as of yet. As Duncan pointed out yesterday, it's always true that it is the weather far more than the economy that affects outdoor power equipment sales.

So how has this season been for you? It would be great if you could let us know by taking our quick survey today.

When we ran a similar one this time last year the majority of respondents said that their overall business in 2015 had been pretty much the same as it had the previous year. Will we see more dealers saying that their sales are up in 2016?

Where dealers’ revenue was coming from last year, according to our survey, was interesting. Both machine sales and parts appeared to have remained fairly constant across 2014 and 2015, but last year 43% of respondents said that their service levels were up. Can they increase year on year?

Also last year, not many dealers appeared to be expanding their staffing levels, only 11% said that they'd taken on more people. If what we're hearing about sales levels being up this year proves to be true, it'll be interesting to see if this has meant more dealers have felt the need to expand with more staff.

If you take our survey, as ever there's space there for you to let us know your thoughts on the current state of the industry. What have been your high-points of 2016 so far. And indeed your disappointments? Feel free to let us know what's really on your mind.

So please, click here to take our survey. We'll publish the results and your comments in the next issue of Service Dealer.

Thanks for your help.