cabelas is discontinuing tractor sales

[daugen]

Having nice stuff can make life easier, but living life is what should be celebrated. There's a growing trend amongst millennials that they value the experience more than the price paid; so there's some hope that our culture will get over the "more is more" kick we've been on since the 60's and get back to being human to one another.

I have a lot of people's jaws drop when they come into my shop for the first time. It's been collected over decades (and I'm not all that old!), but it's just stuff. Stuff that lets me make things, and I enjoy the making more than I enjoy the having the tool that lets me do it.

So here's a little insight on investing in stuff. I've had a couple really nice cars in my life. I found out that I would worry about their well being. I would park where they wouldn't likely get dings or scratched. I would worry about getting broken into when I was downtown at a concert and my head was not in the moment of enjoying the performance - I was thinking about my nice car in that dark parking lot 3 blocks away. I was attached to the process of owning them, they really owned me. In both cases (one happened when I was younger, the other happened a few years back when I finally got my "dream car" 540i), I got to resent those cars because of the control being concerned over them had on my mental state. I eventually sold them and got older, not completely crappy, but much less valuable vehicles that I didn't care all that much about - readily replaced if something were to happen (and I've been fully insured on all my cars). It's liberating!!!! So what you almost hit me! So what you sent your cart sailing across the parking lot! So what it's hailing small bricks outside and there's a tornado 3 blocks away! I was free of the bondage of those stupid possessions! I no longer cared if something bad or even inconsequential happened to my car.

I do love my tractor. It's changed my life and made things that were very difficult on my body much easier to accomplish and I don't have any more aches and pains from doing even more work than I ever could without it. But it's still just stuff.

well said. When Christmas becomes what you can give vs what you can receive, then life will also follow, what we give, what we do, how we live.
Tools are only enablers for us to do more with our lives. I admit to being a stuff person. Have a lot more tools than I have good knowledge to use them. But once in a while i have that need and it is remarkably satisfying to have the right tool for the job. I think there is some piling on here, let's just talk about tractors. 5070, come back.

last year there was a long thread on Cabela tractors, and a lot of second guessing about whether this whole experiment would last, how much value there was in it.
Looks like the negative folks were right, but you can't blame Cabela's for trying. They wanted to provide a premium buying experience, a little added cachet.
Basically trade on their name...
I never owned one but I bet lots of you owned Eddie Bauer Ford Explorers at one time. There were tons of them sold in New England.
Maybe Cabela's thought they could ride that kind of wave. They will likely sell their hardware off at cost and lose a pretty penny on the whole investment.

 

[EddieWalker]

Man would I hate to be the guy at Cabela's who was in charge of starting this whole tractor thing in the first place! What a terrible idea!

My thought was they saw how Northern Tool has been doing this for years and figured they could do the same thing. They have also been successful at selling a variety of boats at their stores, so why not tractors? I think their big mistake was in charging more for their version of the tractor then the dealer did. I guess that might have been part of the arrangement so they didn't hurt the existing dealerships, but most people who buy tractors are going to do a little research first and when you find out that the dealership has the same tractor for less money, it's a no brainer to go to the dealership instead.

 

[Btown]

While the sale prices look reasonable I would wonder about the resale prices for a 10 year old tractor in the future. I would rather skip the orphan models buying anything. I buy a limited amount of recreational gear from Cabelas and Bass Pro and have been satisfied with both. I don't need to buy tractors from either one.

I don't think used prices will vary much than the TYM and Mahindra versions. Bobcat tractor values appear to be comparable to Kioti ones on tractor house.com.

 

[AxleHub]

I believe Cabelas specifically chose a less well known manufacturer because Cabelas was in effect replacing the dealers purpose in the stores that took on the Land Management process. Then they had TYM make some modifications (exterior and interior) to the products they chose to carry. My understanding is that they had TYM increase some of the frame member supports and beef up the units while still keeping a majority of the engine and transmission parts identical.

This way they created a product line that they directly supported in service and warranty and inventory at each selling city they operated. It was a good deal also for TYM. But to show how things went a bit off track from the beginning . . They were only able to initially sell and market the larger units first. Then later the 35 model . . and finally after nearly a full year . . The 25. And getting stores up and going took longer than planned. They started with 5 or 10 stores and grew it out slowly.

Obviously initial planning was held up while TYM got all the changes completed and that meant a big problem. Had Cabelas first gotten the 25 and then the 35 they could have built better momentum and more quantity of sales. In addition . . Staging from small to larger would have allowed them to better evaluate how things were being accepted and possibly limit the number of sizes, inventory costs, and risks . . keeping stress down and giving them more time to devrlop acceptance. In addition . . they had significant delays in implement choices and selection for their tractors. As an example . . 1 choice of mmm for each model . . uncertainty of snowblower for the smaller models. And while service people were well trained . . the tractors in most cases were with the stores and the service departments were somewhere else . . meaning the traffic flow at the service dept. Did not get the customers into the store or seeing the tractors and implements. There's also a comraderee that ties between sales and service . . that is benefitted by same site location.

But had I been giving Cabelas my opinion at the beginning . . I would have used the Cub Cadet/Yanmar example (sc2400/sc2450) effort. Those were superior machines at the time . . Equal in quality to any scut offered . . and superior in several ways. But its biggest weakness was not its name . . but the fact it had such a limited choice of implements. Prospects want "choice" or the sense they can add options as they choose or grow needs. Cabelas didn't learn from history . . And imo the TYM or Cabelas 25 as an example . . was not the quality or design engineering or features that the SC2400 series was from 2006 to 2013.

Just my opinion . . but Cabelas could have either reduced their risk . . or had a modest success had they developed tractors the way they did boats and motors . . Small to larger instead of the other way around . . and limit the top end models.

 

[TSO]

In my opinion, the main issue was timing. 10 years ago, maybe something like this could have worked... Back in the days before good information was immediately availability from the phone in your hand. These days, folks can uncover the shell game pretty quickly.

Even a large name company like Bobcat (Doosan) couldn't successfully pull off re-branding tractors. Once everyone knew and report that they were white Kioti's, they didn't stand a chance. My local Bobcat dealer told me that the only people he had buy the white versions were the customers that wanted everything on their fleet to be "Bobcat".... But his other customers knew they could the same machine cheaper at the Kioti dealer.

I don't have the sales numbers, but I'm pretty confident that New Holland doesn't sell as many tractors either, now that everyone knows (well most everyone) that LS builds them, and sells them way cheaper.

Timing is everything, and I'm surprised that the Braintrust at Cabela's couldn't figure that out.

I think they would've been more successful at starting out with their own line of Cabela's branded Woods implements. I'm sure that the avid Cabela's fans that like to wear Cabela's branded gear would want Cabela's branded implements in their hunting camps to show off... And then, after implement sales got started, I think they should have just tried to be a retail "dealership" center for one of the tractor brands, even TYM.

 

[Jim Timber]

I got my cabela's by woods root grapple far cheaper than any woods dealer would quote one for. Ironically, the number of woods dealers who'd return an email sales inquiry was very low - so cabela's got the sale.

I didn't buy it because I'm a brand fan-boy. I bought it because they had one on the lot I happened to notice and in looking at how well it's put together, I took a fondness for it. I was actually going to build my own up until that point.

 

[TSO]

I got my cabela's by woods root grapple far cheaper than any woods dealer would quote one for. Ironically, the number of woods dealers who'd return an email sales inquiry was very low - so cabela's got the sale.

I didn't buy it because I'm a brand fan-boy. I bought it because they had one on the lot I happened to notice and in looking at how well it's put together, I took a fondness for it. I was actually going to build my own up until that point.

Sorry Jim, I wasn't saying that every single purchase there would be a fan-boy purchase... Don't take offense.

But we both know people who would proudly tout their Cabela's implements at deer camp

 

[AuburnAlum]

Cabela's is an interesting company. I had the pleasure having them as a customer a number of years ago. You have to wonder about a few things regarding Cabela's.

1-Cabela's is in Sidney, Nebraska. A town of 6000+ people. It is in the middle of no where. Denver is a 2 1/2 hour drive away.
-Who chooses to have a career here? Why? How long do they stay?

2-Cabela's believes it does not competes with BassPro Shops. Yes, Cabela's believes that it does not compete with BassPro Shops.
-They believe that their customer base is very loyal and not the same as though that visit a BassPro shop.

3-They started as an order by catalog company. Retail stores are a relatively new venture in the grand scheme of things.

The first factor probably contributed to why they started selling tractors. I hope they stay around long for a while.

 

[Jim Timber]

I know - I already said what I think about their clothes. :laughing: I'd like em even more if they didn't say cabelas on them, but it is what it is.

I thought for sure that Wood's dealers would kill the Dark Green version on pricing until I started talking with them to find out it would be close to double the cabelas paint version. Freight to dealer, price of unit was much higher, delay to get it, all that - That I could go pick it up for a better price was icing on the cake. I did do a lot of digging to make sure these weren't "dumbed down" versions using inferior steel before pulling the trigger.

So their inventory, discounts, and proximity to me did make them the best dealer to purchase from in this case. I saved a couple grand. :shocked: Well, not really. I would've built my own had these not been near the break-even point of making one.

 

[Lastkidpicked]

I may be able to shed a little light into this because back in my younger days, I was right smack in the middle of the Cabela's sitution, but with a different company.
So I'll show you how it looks from the company side:

Me: Thank you for buying a tractor from us, I hope you get great service from it!
Customer: Your welcome. Is delivery still set up for 10:00 tomorrow morning?
Me: Yes. We use a third party, John and Son's, to make the delivery. It is included in the price, so no charge to you.
---
Next day at 10:30
Customer calls on the phone: Where are you? You said you'd be here at 10:00.
Me: I don't know why your tractor isn't there. I'll find out. (Call John and Son's, and find out they took extra time to show their first delivery how to use the tractor and are now running late). I relay this to the customer.
Customer: I see you are right on time to take my money, but a half hour late to deliver the tractor!

And now you start to see the problem... things that are outside of our (and Cabela's) control, such as third parties delivering the tractor. And the customer is mad at US.

Two months later...

Customer: The tractor I bought from you is broke down.
Me: Sorry to hear it. Good news is that it is still under warranty. The authorized repair shop is at 123 main street, and they will fix it and send the bill to me, don't worry.
Customer: I have no way to get it there, and with all the money I spend with you, you should come and get it.

Customer satisfaction is our number one priority, so I get authorization to pay for pickup and delivery.

Me: Since you are a loyal customer, I'll send John and Son's over to pick it up for you and they will send the bill to me.
Customer: I don't want to use John and Son's. They were late last time. I want to use Jane and Daughters trucking.
Me: John and Son's is our contracted delivery service.
Customer is getting angry now, so I ask our Regional Manager for an exception, and get it.

Two weeks later, the Regional Manager is in my office:
Boss: Hey, I have an invoice here from Jane and Daughter's trucking for $ 350
Me: Yeah?
Boss: John and Son's has an agreement with us that pickup and delivery is $ 250

So now you see where the problems continue... we are spending an extra $ 100 to keep a customer happy, even though we haven't done anything wrong.

The phone rings and it is our customer: I'm furious with you! Your authorized repair shop still has my tractor and it's been two weeks!
Me: Have you asked them what's going on?
Customer: No, that's YOUR job.

So I call over to the repair shop, and they explain that April and May are two months where every repair shop in town is two weeks behind. Nobody did anything wrong, it's just spring is a very busy time for the shops.

I call the customer to explain this.
Customer: Well, it's your name on the tractor! Why aren't you helping me?

And now you see the problem.

1) We will LOSE money on the tractor pretty soon, because manufacturer's warranty doesn't pay for hauling. We pay for that as a benefit to our customers.
2) The hauling company took extra time to show a customer how to use their tractor, making them late to our customer. Who is now mad at US.
3) The repair shop is two weeks behind, and that makes the customer mad at US "It's your name on the tractor!"
4) So the very customer who we spent extra money trying to make happy, is quite unhappy and is telling his friends not to buy anything from us.

I even remember customers asking me flat out, "If you keep sending me out to the authorized repair shop, then why shouldn't I just buy the tractor from them?"

Well, good question. That's why we stopped doing it, and probably the same reason Cabela's is getting out of the tractors as well.