Dealer Deere dealers closing down

[montanaman]

Well it looks like two Deere dealers very close to me have been told they are no longer wanted as dealers. The closest one to me I know pretty well and he has built his life around trying to sell and service the green and yellow. He has never had anything in his place that wasn't JD or Frontier.

The story goes that they no longer want the small dealers and want to sell through dealers that can do about 5 million a year.

The sad thing is that if I needed a part for a JD, I know that my local small dealer could get it for me. The giant stores don't tend to have the "quality" of people working there and the parts dept is usually staffed by the guy or gal who will work for the least. His place was just like mine, family rum and you couldn't find a person working there that didn't care about the customer!

I know I've lost a few sales to these dealers because of the power of JD and customers that are afraid of future service but it looks like I'll be the one still here.

I'll likely pick up some JD lawn and garden service work too I guess.

I'm just glad I have Stihl here. They have advertised for too long that they aren't in the box stores to ever take that turn!

Ken

 

[gamble77]

That will be Deere's tendancy for years to come. Weed out the small dealers and try to thrive on large multi-store dealerships. Sounds like good news for you though!

 

[CMunger]

It is not only Deere that is doing this, Agco is doing it by moving in with Cat dealers with the Challenger line, and CNH is going for the larger dealer route also. These concepts would be interesting to debate. Some car manufactures have done the same thing, they annalize what the average profit is on a auto sale, and determine how many cars a dealer needs to sell, then calculates the sale potential of the territory, then gives them a area large enough to sell a given nimber. The "Mom & Pop" thing, like the corner store vs Wal-Mart.

Chuck

 

[montanaman]

I know what they are trying to do, but the problem is that they are creating huge gaps between the dealers. Most customers will ask me where the nearest Montana dealer is from me and some don't like the answer. There have been a ton of JD lawn tractors sold by these two dealers because they were close to the customers that bought them. When JD put their stuff in the junk stores, that hurt these dealers that have been very loyal to sell only JD. Oh, but they did get to pick up a lot of under-paying warranty work for JD though! Now after JD beat them out of sales, they come back and pull their dealerships because of lack of volume??

The problem with the mass merchants is that they DO cause the quality of products to go down by creating bidding wars between companies trying to get their valuable shelf space.

I've been to the local Home Depot and Lowes and it's a fact that I sell better chainsaws at the same prices, and sometimes lower! Home Depot is selling saw chain made in China for higher prices than I sell genuine Stihl chain made by Stihl in their own plant! Stihl is the ONLY saw company making their own chain and there are a half a dozen reasons why it IS better and yet Home Depot is as high as $4 more than me on a 20" chain made in China!

When I built a deck last year, I went to my local lumber yard and guess what? They had straighter, nicer lumber than the junk stores and they even stocked boards over 16'. The prices were much better too.

There are some things that it's hard to beat the box stores at but there are a lot of items that people flock to them to buy that they could get better quality for less by shopping their local businesses.

I think they advertise so much about their good prices that people just blindly believe it!!

Enough rant for now...

Ken

 

[LBrown59]

Well it looks like two Deere dealers very close to me have been told they are no longer wanted as dealers.
Ken

Did you read the John Deere dealer out to lunch thread?

 

[Mahindra35]

Mahindra Dealers are doing the same thing.

The small home town dealers for any kind of product are diminishing.

The global market will drive these conditions.

And home town politicians are gone.

Dont care to look at the landscape in another 20 years.

 

[Alan L.]

Fewer dealers = less competition = higher prices

 

[gamble77]

Alan L. hit the nail on the head

 

[CMunger]

The "Up & Comers" will take this mid position in the market place, mainly the Korean tractors. So, for you people that want a good product and neiborly service, at a good price.

Chuck

 

[Maka]

I agree with you Chuck.

Maka