The recession has hit hard, and in many cases the small businessman has been hit the hardest. When you have the perfect storm of events, the small man is wiped out in the tsunami of fate. The small businessman has been the backbone of the economy, and this recession is taking its toll on the man on Main Street. While the large lobbying corporations are getting bailouts, it’s the small business owners who are paying the price. One such story is that of CBX Man in Edwardsville.
CBX Man was a small business that opened its doors on Main Street. On a Main Street in a dying town in need of the small business owner. This is a business that employed local people and serviced local motorcycles.
Dennis McCartney, who is CBX Man, tells the following story of the perfect storm that helped him close the doors on his Main Street business.
“CBX Man motorcycles was a division of CBX Man.com, which opened up in 2003 originally designed to rebuild CBX motorcycles which were built from 1979- 1982 by Honda. Matt Martell was a King’s College graduate who built our first Web site, and he built a business and his first interactive web site was built for CBX Man. He’s since turned that business into a major business for himself.
“In 2005, Matt suggested to me that we change the Web site from CBXMan.com, appealing only to CBX owners, to CBX Man Motorcycles. I approved that Web site, and from there we grew the company and doubled the sales in the first two years. From 2005–2007 the sales doubled, and then from 2007–2008 the sales doubled again.
“In 2009 the recession occurred.”
He adds that, “There were some extenuating circumstances that occurred. Our Internet business was about 60 percent of our total volume. (An) example: In 2009, when we closed we had already done over $500, 000 on the Internet. The reason that we closed was that we were not selling enough vehicles.”
He continues by explaining that it wasn’t just the recession that hit him hard.
“We did very well from 2007–2008, doubled our volume, and it looked like we were off to the races. Then the recession occurred. In addition to that, in September of 2008, Penn Dot began not allowing us to issue license plates. They never notified us, and they simply began rejecting the paperwork that we sent to Harrisburg. Our customers who we had issued plates to were coming back to the dealership saying that Penn Dot says that this plate was no good, and we can’t put it on our bike and have to turn it back in.
“At this time, there were a number of motorcycles coming in from China and sold on the Internet that did not meet the requirements of (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). Furthermore, these vehicles were never registered the machines with NHSTA, and they were never registered to sell their vehicles. So Penn Dot shut down all dealers in Pennsylvania and required them to send the paperwork to Harrisburg for verification.”
Danielle Klinger of Penn Dot explained this action:
“This is an important consumer protection issue, since an undocumented VIN configuration could make it very difficult for the consumer to identify the vehicle’s manufacturer if it became necessary for NHTSA to issue a safety recall for these vehicles in the future,” she said. “Ultimately, this could negatively impact a customer and/or dealer of these vehicles from a liability standpoint.”
Dennis sees it differently.
“What this all meant for the customer was that if you went into the dealer on a Saturday to buy a bike, you then had to wait possibly three weeks to get your plates. When the issue with Penn Dot became apparent, other local dealers jumped on this, telling people (they) should not consider buying a scooter or motorcycle from CBX Man because they couldn’t get a license.”
This was the first hit for the small company.
“In February of 2009, a law was passed that any product that came from China that contained lead could not be sold to children under 12 years old,” he continues. “This law was interpreted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to include ATVs and dirt bikes ridden by children under 12 years old.”
Dennis says that this was about 20 percent of his business.
He says he closed CBX Man on Oct. 31.
He says that the Penn Dot plan was a good idea, but that it took a “shotgun approach” to the product.
“This approach would have been good for us since it would have gotten rid of the unfit products sold on the Internet,” he says. “Right idea, wrong plan, and that’s one of the big reason’s we’re not around.”
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