Buying from advertisers

[Junkman]

At the monthly meeting of the CT/MA TBN meeting, we were discussing the dealers that we purchased tractors from and where they were located. One member (name removed) purchased his from a out of state dealer that claims to have sold over 300 tractors in the past year to residents of CT. Another purchased his tractor from a local dealer. What I find interesting is that both of these dealers names are mentioned on TBN all the time, but to date, I have never seen any form of paid advertising by either of them. When purchasing a tractor, how important is it to you that the dealer that you have found on TBN is a supporter of TNB by purchasing advertising? I know that whenever possible, I support the paid advertisers by purchasing from them. I find it ironical that some of the people that make their livelihood selling tractors to people that post on TBN don't advertise on TBN. Are they able to sell them less expensively because they don't spend money advertising?????? If you are a dealer reading this post and it strikes a chord with you, I would like to have your input also why this phenomena .... /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[gsxr1100]

I think I would trust word of mouth (aka this forum) before some advertising on any forum/board. You could have a dealer that is poor and advertise.

Plus I do not know what process there is on TBN, to see if the advertisers are doing good, bad etc. Basically I do not know if the advertising people get a "report card".

Is there a list of all advertising dealers on TBN? I just do not know other then the top ads what other dealers/websites there are....

 

[sendero]

It's hard to separate such issues out sometimes.

There are two comments I'd like to make. First, I love TBN but I'm not about to make a significant purchase decision based on who advertises here. Really bad advertising can turn me off of a product/vendor, but good advertising is never better than neutral to me.

Second, the internet is played like a fiddle by many merchants. If you see a certain dealer's name over and over, it might be because that dealer is exemplary and folks are just sharing helpful information, or it might be that the dealer has 5 login names and makes sure his business gets framed in a good light. I know it sounds cynical, believe me it goes on all over the net.

Sure, if someone I "know" here makes a buying recommendation, I *will* add it to my set of data points, it will have some positive influence, but I'm going to do my own homework before making a buy because really almost none of us really know each other.

 

[YanmarFever]

Well... to be brief about this
I just aquired a mahindra dealership, so I posted about it on the mahindra forum, well it only lasted 10 minutes & it was deleted! I guess you have to pay to tell others about your fortune.
Im not a big tractor dealer, where I target the whole country
we only sell & advertise close by.
But I dont own TBN. so I dont make the rules, I just try to follow them. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Moon]

Did you break a forum rule in your posting? I've noticed a few tractor dealers posting in the areas i frequent.

Moon of Ohio

 

[Bird]

Moon, there is certainly nothing wrong with dealers being members and posting messages on the forums. In fact, we're very glad to have them. However, Item #9 of the Terms of Service prohibits advertising in the discussion forums without permission from Tractorbynet. There are dealers who are paying to advertise on TBN, and both they and non-advertising dealers are frequently very helpful in answering members' questions. And of course some, if not all, of us hope that just being a member and frequenting TBN helps the dealers, too, by letting them know what questions and/or problems their customers or potential customers might have and what owners especially like about various brands and models.

 

[sweettractors]

<font color="blue"> Second, the internet is played like a fiddle by many merchants. If you see a certain dealer's name over and over, it might be because that dealer is exemplary and folks are just sharing helpful information, or it might be that the dealer has 5 login names and makes sure his business gets framed in a good light. I know it sounds cynical, believe me it goes on all over the net. </font>

sendero, I tend to agree with you, I know of at least one paying TBN advertiser that bragged to me 2 years ago that he had many user names and different ISP's so he would not get caught and could frame his point of view and manipulate the discussions in a way that best served his business. Sad but true /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif--Ken Sweet

 

[BRIGUY]

There are a few dealers local to me. I don't know if this is still the case, but one of them told me over the summer that they will no longer advertise on TBN. They sent payment for an add that was recieved by TBN and there ad was never listed. They made several attempts to get the add shown or to get a refund and were unable to get either. It wasn't the expense of the add that turned them off, it was having to chase down TBN to get there add posted of $ back during there busy season. Maybe this has been resolved by now I don't know.

 

[BRIGUY]

I just looked and the dealer has a current ad so The issue must have been resolved. But I know it must have taken a few months.

 

[Muhammad]

<font color="blue">I don't know if this is still the case, but one of them told me over the summer that they will no longer advertise on TBN. They sent payment for an add that was recieved by TBN and there ad was never listed.</font>

Well that's news to me. I do have one record of a dealer in NY who e-mailed us about a payment not getting posted to their classified account. That issue was resolved within three days...

So if you want to let me know which dealer it was, I could look into it but I haven't received any requests of the nature you describe.