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MOTORCYCLE Bintelli brings Adly back to the U.S. 44 • October 5, 2015 • Powersports Business www.PowersportsBusiness.com Distributor says scooters will complement what's already on the market BY LIZ KEENER MANAGING EDITOR Bintelli, a scooter company based in the U.S., has seen great growth in the past two years, as sales have risen 30 percent. But Bintelli and its dealers aren't the only ones taking notice of this success. In early 2014, Adly Moto, a Taiwanese scooter manu- facuter owned by Her Chee Industrial Com- pany Ltd., came knocking on Bintelli's door. Adly, which has had a presence in the U.S. for more than a decade, was looking for a new U.S. distributor, and Bintelli president Justin Jack- rel's success with bringing in Chinese scooters caught Adly's attention. "We were approached by Adly because they have taken notice of Bintelli, and they were looking for a new distributor to represent the product well and the way it should be," Jackrel told Powersports Business. "They've been in the country for as long as I've been in the industry, for 15 years, but it's been a while since it had a distributor that really stood behind it and pro- moted the line the way it should have." After researching Adly and another Tai- wanese scooter company, Jackrel was glad to begin discussions with Adly. And the team at Adly was just as ecstatic. The week after they received the call from Jackrel, Adly's presi- dent, engineers and management team were in the U.S., drafting an agreement that led Bintelli to become the exclusive U.S. distribu- tor of Adly scooters. When it came down to deciding whether to work with Adly or not, Jackrel was impressed with CEO C.C. Chen, who Jackrel said has the same mentality that he brings to work. "I was really impressed with the mentality that they want to be better," Jackrel said. "They want to learn about other cultures. They want to produce the best quality products and take care of their customers and not just have it where 'We're going to sell you as many pieces as possible, and we don't care what we're pro- ducing.' They have pride within them, and that was really evident from meeting them a year ago, and then it really struck home when I vis- ited them for the first time." Jackrel pointed out two observations from his first trip to Taiwan that really solidified the partnership in his mind. The first was when he arrived at the Adly factory, and Chen was nowhere to be found. It turns out Chen was personally delivering scooters to one of his local Taiwanese dealers. "That's the type of mentality that we love. We love that customer-first attitude, that, 'We're going to go get the sale; we're going to support our customers and get personally involved.' And because he's got that mentality, his staff has the same mentality as well," Jack- rel explained. Also, as Jackrel was inspecting the first four containers of scooters set for delivery to the U.S., he was impressed that he found no defects and no changes necessary. In his experience, this isn't always the case. ACCOMMODATING ADLY After drafting its distributorship agreement in January 2014, Bintelli was ready to start ship- ping scooters in the spring of 2014, but distri- bution of the scooters was halted as the U.S. government required new tests for the units. "We were ready to rock and roll last spring, but the EPA decided that they wanted us to do new testing because there hadn't been any testing done in the prior two years. So unfor- tunately that delayed the product for a year," Jackrel reported. After working with the EPA to bring the Adly scooters into compliance, Bintelli was finally ready to import the vehicles in early July of this year. But Bintelli had to make one more change before it was fully ready to bring in more inven- tory — the company had to move out of its longtime headquarters in Gainesville, Fla. "We had outgrown our building three years ago, and we had product stacked on top of product, stacked on top of product. It was just miserable, and it was killing our efficiency, making it where we were actually losing sales to dealers because we just didn't have the inventory that we needed," Jackrel said. Bintelli hoped to stay in Gainesville, but the college town didn't offer much in terms of industrial space. With the need to be near a port city with access to shipments of scooters from Taiwan and China, Bintelli began searching the East Coast and landed on a facility in Charleston, S.C. "We found this building that we're in now that gives us just under four times the space for the same amount of money, so we've already increased our stock of the Bintelli line. We've increased our stock of the electric vehicles that we sell. We also now can bring on the Adly side, which we really wouldn't have even had room for down in Gainesville," Jackrel said. Shortly after the mid-summer move, Bin- telli's inventory was already at the highest level it had ever been at, making it easier for the dis- tributor to get Bintelli and Adly product to deal- erships. The location farther north also lessens shipping rates for dealers in the Carolinas, the Northeast and the Midwest. For Adly, however, Bintelli is offering $60 flat rate shipping per scooter to dealers throughout the U.S., as long as dealers take on a minimum order. ROOM IN THE MARKET FOR ADLY When Bintelli decided to become the exclu- sive U.S. distributor for Adly scooters, Jackrel knew there was a perfect slot in the market for Adly. With $1,749 and $1,849 starting price points for the first two Adly scooters Bintelli has brought to market, the vehicles fit squarely between Bintelli's 50cc Chinese counterparts and the 50cc scooters offered by Taiwanese competitors. See Adly, Page 48 Superior Scooters in Meriden, Ct., was one of the first Bintelli dealers to bring on Adly as well. The Adly GTA 50 is an all-new model for the U.S.