YT TO BLIGHTY

YT Industries opens its first UK demo centre and showroom

What’s the major impediment to buying a direct-sales brand? You can’t sit on it, ride it, or worse, you can’t just drop it back to the shop if something goes wrong. YT Industries may well have just brushed all these problems aside, with the opening of its first ever UK premises, offering demo rides and warranty... and surprisingly good coffee.

Called the YT Mill and smack-bang in the heart of the Surrey Hills, you can now book in a demo ride on any size and any bike in the range, or drop in a bike for service and warranty problems. It’s much more than a demo centre though, explains James Lawrence from YT. “It’s like walking into the website,” he says. “Go to the Izzo page online and there’s smoke drifting up – we’ve got the same thing at the Mill.”

We reckon this makes it the first physical website then. There’s a serious point to the fun, smoke and mirrors, it means people can experience the range physically without just relying on the internet. It’s also a place for e-bike warranty, something bricks and mortar stores have been so important for as the new technologies get tested (sometimes to destruction).

“It takes at least two weeks turnaround for something to go back to Germany,” James says. “Now all of it can be done in the UK; we’ll have a solution.”

This is a huge step for YT, it gains exposure and improves its entire customer experience, while also increasing its costs too. The biggest benefit is to us riders though, we’ve now got the best of both worlds – the direct-sales discount coupled with the convenience of physical shopping.