Industry News

Dealer Interview: www.extremescooters.biz

Please tell us a little about yourself and how your business was started: My name is Chad Austreng and I am the owner of www.extremescooters.biz. I started this company a few years ago in the basement of my house, where I began selling and drop shipping gas and electric scooters over the internet. Since then we have grown to include a 2,500 sq ft retail shop along with seeing dramatic growth of our website and ecommerce. We're also in the final phase of construction for our new 10,000sq ft warehouse that we hope to be moved into by Spring.

What type of vehicles and products do you sell?: We sell gas and electric scooters, ATVs, dirt bikes, off-road karts, utility vehicles, super pocket bikes, mini-choppers and childrens ride-on toys.

Childrens ride-on toys? That seems interesting, please tell us more: We have had great success with electric powered toys for toddlers and children. We can offer a wider variety of styles and vehicle types online while keeping the prices affordable for parents.

What did you sell the most of the past year?: 50cc and 150cc street-legal scooters with the 4-stroke QMB139 and GY6 engines. The kids electric powered ride on toys have done really well this year too, which is part of the reason for the expansion of that product line.

With the lowering gas prices and our troubled economy, what are some ways your company is diversifying?: We are bringing in more of the ride-on toys as well as carrying more accessories such as gloves, helmets and riding gear. We've also done a major expansion on our parts line that numbers over 2,500 stock and performance parts for all Chinese power sports vehicles.

How were you able to offer that many parts so quickly?: When we first became a dealer for your company, we also signed up for your affiliate program. This enabled us to include a "Buy Parts" link on our site and allowed us to earn a 15% margin on each sale. This was aside from the parts we were ordering directly. We had really good luck with the affiliate program and wanted to step up to the next level, so we signed on as a drop shipper. Partsforscooters.com made this very easy for us, especially with the drop ship program fully managed and maintained in house. You had everything set up and all we had to do was import your parts spreadsheet into our database. With your company, we know that we have the most reliable parts source out there.

What are some items you would like to see us carry more of in 09'?: I would like to see you carry more after-market accessories, such as helmets, gloves, riding gear and maybe some trunks.

Interview by: Sean Lucas

Product Review

150cc Fuel-Injected Engine

As most of you know this engine is now coming on several scooter models from brands such as CFmoto, Qlink and United Motors. Select dealers and online retailers already have the first ones while nationwide availability is expected this Spring. It's going to be interesting to see if it out sells the proven and ever-so-popular GY6 engine series.

Launched in 1986 and originally designed by Honda, this liquid-cooled version of the GY6 was the first fuel-injected, CVT based engine ever mass produced. This engine's model # is 1P58MJ and is mainly manufactured by CFMoto and is available on their E-Charm model.

It has a horizontal, single cylinder and is a liquid-cooled 4-stroke with an over-head cam. It's similar to the 157MJ 150cc water-cooled engine found on models from brands such as kymco, Qlink and CPI.

One problem I see happening is the control module burning out. We are all familiar with the quality of most Chinese electronic components. Pretty much all of our dealers out there have had experiences with the unpredictability of wiring and components. We also can't forget about the wonderful task of decifering Chinese wiring diagrams!

The engines and scooters themselves are good units and they're pretty fast right out of the box. Just like the release of a new car, its going to take a few years of mass production to get it right. You can however gurantee that www.partsforscooters.com will be working hard to bring you the parts for this engine and the vehicles it comes on.

Written by: Sean Lucas