Too far away?

[mikepow]

How far would you drive to buy a tractor? We are going to expand our current dealership to include the Kioti brand in the near future. We have 2 options for a location-->

1- Use our existing land (2,000+ acres) which is about 15 minutes out of city limits (pop- 120,000). This has worked great in the past because the overhead is very low and we already own the land. We have, however, been mainly wholesale and have had very few local customers (we havent advertised locally though either).

2- Buy land closer to town to the tune of $10- $15k/acre
and have slightly higher prices but better exposure.

My question- if you knew we were out there (newspaper, tv, billboards, etc) would you make the drive to check us out?

How far did some of you owners drive to find your new toys?

How did you find out about your dealer? Newspaper, TV, internet, etc, or just knew they were there because they had a great location?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Mike

[Noland]

I will drive a long way just to look and I would drive back again to buy, if like the place.

I have only been looking for less than a month and I have probably driven 200 miles to look at various dealers.

I am opened minded and have no brand preference/loyalty, so in the end the dealership will probably be the deciding factor.

[To20Chris]

15min is nothing! Folks that have a problem driving 15min probably don't live in a rural area, and probably won't need a tractor!

[DK35vince]

I for one would definately drive a bit farther for a better price and/or dealer.
I found my best deal (by a considerable margin) 85 miles away, and I liked the dealer.
That is where I purchased.
A closer dealer would be more conveniant, but the distance hasn't really been a problem. If I need something I just call the dealer and it is mailed to the house.

[Inspector507]

You've already got the land......save the money from that and use it towards advertising. 15 mins out of town is nothing. Might even pick up the local guys that don't go into town much.

[bigtractor]

So often our ads in equipment publications get lost in a sea of confusion or there is always someone with a lost leader special that grabs the glory. Small local sales papers do a good job.
Be visible highway traffic is the best and cheapest. Buying land on a busy Hwy. may be cheaper then a bunch of advertising. I am on a hwy that the last DOT count was 28,000 daily. Most of our sales comes from just being here. The other is having web site references from the manufacturer. People target what they want and search for the dealer.
Just my 2 cents worth,
Dave

[mikepow]

If we were on a little larger highway It would be different. We are on a mostly dead end highway that goes to an ugly lake. Our road sees, maybe, 30 cars per day and most of those are people that live at the lake. We are only about 100' from a bigger highway that sees about 200 per day but that is still not great.

Mike

[California]

Location is not that important for this market. The important thing is to stay in the public eye, continually. You need a visible presence but it doesn't have to be real estate, it can be a virtual presence.

Think about CocaCola - nobody knows where the local bottling plant is, but every public activity in the community has big Coke banners everywhere. As a consequence Coke has the largest market share.

Here in yuppie California, sponsoring several suburban youth soccer teams would be an inexpensive way to get visibility to people who recently moved to 5 - 20 acre 'estates' and discover a CUT makes an impressive lawnmower. Involvement in high school football might be a link to customers in many areas via outstanding player awards etc. Advertise continually on talk radio if that's where your customers are. Sponsor a huge country music concert, or revival, jazz festival, fishing contest, whatever, at that lake and everyone will know who you are! Probably everyone in america has heard of Woodstock, a promotion that grew a little beyond the promoters expectation.

As the others have noted it's no big deal to drive a few miles to a dealer. But the dealer must be well-known, ie have a continual 'virtual presence' in everyone's mind, to inspire that drive.

[SteveH_CT]

With tht much land you could easily set up a "test drive" area. Let folks try moving dirt, or other types of things that we buy these for. I would have found that real helpful when I was looking. And yes, I think you're well within what most folks would find a reasonable distance.

Good Luck! It's great to see Kioti getting around. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[NIXON]

Mike , a short drive is no inconvenience at all . I drove all over looking at tractors . In fact I went past at least 3 to buy mine . It wasn't on price alone that I bought either . It came down to the dealer in the long run .
You also asked where I found out about dealers and makes .
Right here on this site .
I kind of wonder why most dealers just don't hang a TBN banner in their shop . I'd bet they'd gain more sales than they lose to competitors . Questions answered by users of a product speak volumes to a potential buyer .
As you're dealing with Kioti it might even be a sales point .
If they have reservation about your machines , point them to TBN . Then the reliability of the machine will speak for itself .
JMHO John