beginning of the end for some local dealers??

[Gale Hawkins]

This could be the trend when dealers changes hands. We are seeing this locally with one equipment dealer.

Business is hard. Missed opportunities due to tight cash management can lead to penny wise pound foolish actions.

Business requires foresight and accounting is more of a hindsight activity.

I am running into the same thing with local RV dealers when it comes to parts. They say something is a stock item but it is never in stock. I know times are hard for them but if I am going to pay retail and have to wait on it I will just pay wholesale and get it out of my mailbox without making a 40 mile round trip two or more times to get it.:thumbsup:

 

[Soundguy]

same here on rv dealers. not restocking hardly anything when it goes out.

I had to look long and hard to find some parts for my trailer hitch a while back that 3-4 ys ago would have been at about 4 stores near my house..

soundguy

 

[AKfish]

Foresight... shortsightedness... quick profits...

Used to be 6 different dealerships that offered CUTS and SCUTS along with the normal complement of construction equipment for sale and rent.
'Course you could rent rototillers, disc harrows, finish and bush hog type mowers, aerators, fert and seed spreaders, etc. with the rental tractors.

Right now, in this area - there is one small, Ford tractor (1920, IIRC) and one tiller, one bush hog; period... available for rent at one dealer. There's over 20,000 people within 60 miles.

You can still rent excavators from 25hp to 350hp or dozers nearly in the same hp categories are available at the other 5 dealers; as well as TLB's and SS. Big iron! Big money rents!

Nothing for homeowner's or small landowner's with weekend projects... Go figure.

I suggested to the JD guys after hearing them whine about not being able to sell some of the CUTS and SCUTS they've got on the lot - to rent a few of 'em. Get a bumper pull dump trailer and park one of those new 4105's with FEL and Backhoe right in the bed of it with a big, red-lettered sign that says "RENT ME"!

They all looked at me like I was nuts!

But, local folk's - when they hear you've got a tractor, tiller, backhoe, disc, etc. are always asking if you can come over to do such and such... Never ending list of jobs and chores if you want to follow-up on it!

'Cause alot of them don't have and can't get their hands on equipment to get their projects done!

AKfish

 

[300UGUY]

eepete - that sounds about right. Everytime I walk into an HD or Lowe's and see the 'contractor's desk', I feel a disconnect of some sort - like I think they are pretending to something that doesn't fit my view of reality.

It's not that those aren't useful stores for certain things and situations.

I hope SoundGuy's dealership doesn't go the same way.
Off to bed.
Dave.

There is exactly one lumberyard left in my area. About 20 miles away, over the county line. Used them last year, built a small barn. Had the following problems:

1) Load was built upside down - the matierals when dropped had all the stuff I needed 1st on the bottom.

2) Missing items. The yard sent a truck and a guy out 4 times after stuff came up missing.

3) More missing stuff. I went to their yard twice to get stuff I didn't want to wait for. Items I had paid for.

I figure that the delays cost me at least 2 days on this job. And about 100 mosquito bites.


Being a small, family owned business, NOBODY ever gets fired, I guess. I will eat xxxx & die before I spend another penny in that place. One reason the "big box stores" have replaced the small guys apparently is that a lot of the little guys sucked. If they were "all that", the big box stores wouldn't be so successful. I will be at that contractor desk at HD in a couple of weeks.

 

[dave1949]

:laughing:

There is exactly one lumberyard left in my area. About 20 miles away, over the county line. Used them last year, built a small barn. Had the following problems:

1) Load was built upside down - the matierals when dropped had all the stuff I needed 1st on the bottom.

2) Missing items. The yard sent a truck and a guy out 4 times after stuff came up missing.

3) More missing stuff. I went to their yard twice to get stuff I didn't want to wait for. Items I had paid for.

I figure that the delays cost me at least 2 days on this job. And about 100 mosquito bites.


Being a small, family owned business, NOBODY ever gets fired, I guess. I will eat xxxx & die before I spend another penny in that place. One reason the "big box stores" have replaced the small guys apparently is that a lot of the little guys sucked. If they were "all that", the big box stores wouldn't be so successful. I will be at that contractor desk at HD in a couple of weeks.

I wouldn't take my business there either, but then I luckily have more choices

I have an equidistant, about 12 miles, choice of two decent lumber yards. At either one, I can call an order in and say I'll pay the driver. They come on time with the correct order. One has lower prices but charges for delivery, the other includes 'free' delivery.

The larger and usually better of the two has about 8 retail yards around the state, their own forest land, mills, kilns, etc. Their computer systems are good, the help is competent and friendly.

The service level they provide is so far above a big box store, there is no comparison IMO. When I look at the quality of the lumber stock in the big box stores, it often doesn't look too good either by comparison.

My biggest complaint about the box stores may be that they have never heard of greasing the wheels on their carts :laughing:
Dave.

 

[fltem06]

Don't look at Landig in Tampa. They don't place any stock orders anymore. As needed. Been waiting since the first of July for 2 spindles on a finishing mower.

 

[higgy]

Just in time warehousing and delivery: Translation just in time not to be there when I need it and it makes me mad, leave don't come back.

All of the small guys have had to go that route as the box stores have cut them so bad, now no one has stock on anything... errrr

This is a business plan, in my opinion a going out of business plan. but it is reality.

Good story here though. On of the local machinery dealers built up his employees over the years. He decided to retire with out anyone knowing and to everyone's surprise he turned the business over to the employees that he had trained over the years. Cool huh?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Good story here though. On of the local machinery dealers built up his employees over the years. He decided to retire with out anyone knowing and to everyone's surprise he turned the business over to the employees that he had trained over the years. Cool huh?

That is the sign a man who built a business instead of making him and a few others a JOB.

 

[brucew44guns]

I see this all the time, people either owning businesses, or the people working there, who know little of what they do there or what they actually sell. Call a Dodge dealer and ask, "do you have any Dodge Rams in stock"? "UHHHHhh, well, I'm not sure, let me ask my boss, I don't know". They are just warm bodies putting in time at some places. It's really refreshing to get a 30 year parts veteran, who knows exactly where the part is on the shelf.

 

[brin]

We've lost 3 lumberyards here....only one real lumber yard left and then the big box stores.

By the way is it just me or has Wal Mart drastically cut their inventory. Our locat huge Wal Mart recently went through what they called a chain wide remodeling but now the Isles are twice as wide and the shelves half as high and product half as deep on the shelves. It looks more like a massive inventory reduction under the guise of remdeling if you ask me....so I don't think it is just lumber yards or tractor dealers...You fellas seeing the same thing ?