An old story of our move from all the individual units in Edlington into one big one at Denaby Main.

As most of you will know MB Developments will be on the move again. All been well and nothing falls through his will be our 11th move! The last time Mark said ‘never again’ but 5 years later we have grown so much it’s time to really think where we want to be in 10 – 20 years.

We know employees come and go but we have a good team, our employees look after family’s and look towards MB and what we do to put bread on the table. And as part of the move we have looked at our staff to give them a rosy future towards retirement.

Non of us are getting younger and this move will make or break us, mentally and physically.

Mouse with help from Daft lad has been painting the inside of the building. The painting will take at least two months and throughout this cold spell and it’s taking its toll.

So why are we doing it?

Well for those who do not know, MB Developments work out of 6 Industrial Units, which are all split. The bills add up and it makes no sense any more, we have to pay 6 x rents, rates, electrics, heating, water, alarms, fire rentals, insurance etc. And then we run split shifts with our employees and each unit has to be policed and managed. We are basically grinding to a halt! And with all that, we only have a small trade counter with not a lot to show off and we rely on advertising, new products and web photos to show what we have for sale.

This long term recession doesn’t help anyone, times are hard we admit it, the more employees you have the harder it gets. Costs are spiralling, every delivery seems to have a price increase. Deliveries from around the world are expensive, with some parts you have to weigh up postage against the cost of the parts. We have swallowed as much as we can for a few years, this can not carry on in any business!

We started discussions for the move back in June 2010, it’s a long winded process. If it goes to plan and it never does, we should be trading in March.

So what will change?

The move gives us expansion room in all departments, at first we will be rattling around in an empty building, but in a few months things will move forward and fill up. We will have a shop, yes a real shop at 2000 sq ft 185sq m, which we are designing as an Ikea type shopping experience with parts, products, bikes, Scooters and clothing on display. Of course we will have our stores but these will be a lot more open and easier to work with. The workshop will be massive, 8’000 sq ft of which most will just be open plan, allowing for lorry deliveries. We will have real offices, customers toilets and changing rooms! We may even have a coffee machine!

Don’t be blinkered that MB are just Lambretta tuners, we need to move forward and expand not just to survive but for our sanity! Mark’s been in business for 23 years after a hospital visit 10 years ago learn’t, there is more to life than Lambrettas and health is more important. This lead him to shut up on Saturdays and do something totally different, which lead to Kayak racing, camping, long distant walking, climbing, cycling, traveling and touring Europe on his BMW. And he did it in his usual hard way, as fast as he can for longer, it’s the competitive side of him. He proceeded to become the Great Britain Nation Veteran Slalom Champion 4 years running! All this whilst MB carried on as usual making new products and developments in the Lambretta world.

All this leads us to where we are now………. the shop and move!

Using the love of the great outdoors, traveling, trekking and touring on two wheels or two feet Mark’s knowledge and experience will show in the new shop passing on his experiences in a way hopefully educating Scooterists, Bikers and Joe Blogs about useful, functional quality products.

If you’ve looked at the webshop lately you will have seen the way we are moving forward. To make life a bit easier we have split our web sites up to improve your shopping experience. We started to look at this shopping experience by going back to basics. Would a biker or automatic rider want to buy Schwalbe tyres from a Lambretta shop? …….. And it grew from there, so by splitting the web shops up and putting them under the MB Developments Group name it seemed to make things easier for the customer.

This shopping experience will mean one company, one telephone system, one secure on line banking system allowing you to order one part from each shop. All these websites will be displayed in the new shop.

The shop will show these web sites as displays

Lambrettaspares.com
Every thing Lambretta as always

Vespa – spares
To start with we are cherry picking certain Vespa items and working up to special deliveries from our European partners.

Schwalbe Scooter and moped tyres
As sole UK distributors we will displaying a full range of Scooter and now Moped tyres

Scootermatix
This is our Automatic scooter side of the business, where we can supply many parts to order from our European suppliers

BGM – spares
As sole UK distributor for Scooter Center Koln we will be keeping all their BGM branded products for Lambretta, Vespa, Automatic and Classic Autos

Bykerite
This where you can find great cross over ideas for Scooterists and Motorbikers

BMW
With our involvement with BMW Motorbikes we will specialise in GS products and Biking ideas for touring

MB Fastener – products
We already keep a vast range of industrial fasteners, these will be available in bulk at discount trade prices

MB Gadgets
Here you will find toys for boys, universal toys for Bikes, Scooters and general purpose use

2 – stroke Carburation
We already supply lots of carburettors spares its a better way to see what we have

Travelrite
This is where we will display ideas for all, with items from the outdoor world, crossing over into a functional, casual and adventurous sporting life.

Up to now we are working closely with various manufacturers and suppliers, some are even manufacturing Marks ideas! These suppliers will be kitting us out using their displays.

It’s exciting times and if it all comes together there will be something for every.

2021 looking back – wow – god we were busy full of ideas and fingers in lots of pies to keep people in a job – little did we know the move and the great recession would come to bite us BIG.