Experience at Kubota dealer - central Florida

[Lineman North Florida]

Kubota states that their franchises are independently owned so your water carrier may have some leaks as well. Not all company business models are the same.
There is price gouging going on but because one or 15 does it, doesn't mean it is indicative through out the seller market.
I'd rather not stroke with the brush so broadly knowing what I know.

As far as I know nobody asked you to broad stroke, I gave an example of my firsthand experience with 3 different big Kubota dealers within 80 miles of me and not one of them was even close to what I was able to buy for after a little road trip and shopping around, I stand by my original statement, " You can't hardly deal with a lot of these corporate dealers". Maybe I should have added unless you have money to throw away, most of us don't , I am confident that there are some good large corporate dealerships, but that wasn't my experience.

 

[arrow]

As far as I know nobody asked you to broad stroke, I gave an example of my firsthand experience with 3 different big Kubota dealers within 80 miles of me and not one of them was even close to what I was able to buy for after a little road trip and shopping around, I stand by my original statement, " You can't hardly deal with a lot of these corporate dealers". Maybe I should have added unless you have money to throw away, most of us don't , I am confident that there are some good large corporate dealerships, but that wasn't my experience.

Size of dealership does not equate to "corporate". As a matter of fact, a well healed individual might have more than one dealership. You're way off there if you think size has anything to do with this. Kubota states their dealerships are privately and individually franchised. So unless Kubota reps don't know what they're talking about, where are you getting "Kubota Corporate Dealership" from?
If you shopped around and found a smaller dealership, that dealer gave you a break dependent on 1. old pricing on stock already landed. 2. necessity of a sale dependent on floor planning. 3. Lower overhead to compensate for. 4. Same model but differentiation dependent on regulations at time of build.

Walk a mile for a moment: If you had something that cost you 75K as an owner of a delaership and the thing had an msrp of 90K. You as the owner would know what you would have to get to continue to make a profit or even break even. Some dealerships need all they can get. Some are "profiteering" and getting more than sticker. If you sell this one, how long will it take before you get a replacement to buy and then sell? What creditors are breathing down your neck? What financial nut do you have to break? How much do you have to up salaries as a result of trying to get help or keeping the help you have? If you have 6 employees, that is much easier to deal with in this regard than if you had 30.

Some dealerships rely on mass marketing and sell a ton of stuff. If supplies have dwindled where it takes 4 to 6 months for you to get another tractor, your supply line has "dried up". If you gave people substantial breaks in pricing before in order to move product because your volume was always high and replenished, what happens when your supply line vanishes as you knew it?

"Corporate" in this case has nothing to do with it. It is what the owner of that dealership deems necessary to stay in business and continue to stand behind their employees.

 

[RidgeHiker]

It might be useful to contact the dealer again, ask to speak with the CEO or someone in management and sincerely explain what your experience with them was like and how it left you feeling. You could email the text from your original post above. If they care about their reputation they may bend over backwards to work with you (or not). Might be worth a try if they are your closest dealer and you want to try an experiment to see where it leads. They may not be as bad a dealer as it initially looks (or then again....).

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

I've always thought of Kubota as the brand that every other brand competes against in small to mid sized tractors. Every time I've wanted to buy something, I looked at them online, read all I could about them here on TBN, then went to the Kubota dealership to see what they had, and what it would cost. I did this for my first tractor, my zero turn, my UTV, and even last year when looking for a cabbed tractor. In every case, the sales guy talking me out of buying from them. He wasn't consistent in his knowledge of what I was looking at, he couldn't tell me what Kubota had to offer over the competition, and his pricing was always along the lines of take it or leave it. So I went to another brand and bought something other then Kubota. One day I'll probably own a Kubota, but I doubt it will be brand new from the dealer.

What was the other "brand" that you went with?

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

Sales is where you sink or swim and the ones that do it well know their product and deliver…

Unfortunately the bar to entry is low so just about anyone can get hired on commission.

Window Stickers on cars made window shopping easier…

Too bad it is so hard to even get a price out of many dealers selling tractors.

My best and worst Dealer experience is with Kubota…

Best was my selling dealer but that small family dealer is no more.

Worst is when I went to buy a post hole digger and was asked where I bought my tractor and since it was not from them I was told they would not sell to me… honestly what happened.

Called Kubota and was told Dealers are Independent…

My current Dealer is good but got off to not so good start.

Coming back from the mountains I had my nephew with me age 10… we were looking to buy L3800.

The owners wife said children not allowed on the sale lot and I could look but the boy would have to remain in the car…

Now the boy is the one with the most tractor hours and also the one that does the daily greasing, etc…

Yeah I have to agree that was a really crappy experience. Neither of which makes any sense to me.

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

Size of dealership does not equate to "corporate". As a matter of fact, a well healed individual might have more than one dealership. You're way off there if you think size has anything to do with this. Kubota states their dealerships are privately and individually franchised. So unless Kubota reps don't know what they're talking about, where are you getting "Kubota Corporate Dealership" from?
If you shopped around and found a smaller dealership, that dealer gave you a break dependent on 1. old pricing on stock already landed. 2. necessity of a sale dependent on floor planning. 3. Lower overhead to compensate for. 4. Same model but differentiation dependent on regulations at time of build.

Walk a mile for a moment: If you had something that cost you 75K as an owner of a delaership and the thing had an msrp of 90K. You as the owner would know what you would have to get to continue to make a profit or even break even. Some dealerships need all they can get. Some are "profiteering" and getting more than sticker. If you sell this one, how long will it take before you get a replacement to buy and then sell? What creditors are breathing down your neck? What financial nut do you have to break? How much do you have to up salaries as a result of trying to get help or keeping the help you have? If you have 6 employees, that is much easier to deal with in this regard than if you had 30.

Some dealerships rely on mass marketing and sell a ton of stuff. If supplies have dwindled where it takes 4 to 6 months for you to get another tractor, your supply line has "dried up". If you gave people substantial breaks in pricing before in order to move product because your volume was always high and replenished, what happens when your supply line vanishes as you knew it?

"Corporate" in this case has nothing to do with it. It is what the owner of that dealership deems necessary to stay in business and continue to stand behind their employees.

You make some valid points. I had another insider tell me the same thing. However, don't complain when the customer buys from the dealer in the next county over because he beat your price by a considerable margin.

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

It might be useful to contact the dealer again, ask to speak with the CEO or someone in management and sincerely explain what your experience with them was like and how it left you feeling. You could email the text from your original post above. If they care about their reputation they may bend over backwards to work with you (or not). Might be worth a try if they are your closest dealer and you want to try an experiment to see where it leads. They may not be as bad a dealer as it initially looks (or then again....).

No, what he needs to do is get some other quotes right now. The owner of that dealer will not see this in the same manner as the OP. This is all about leverage. If he can locate another dealer with a better offer then he is in the position to challenge the other dealers price. If not then he may need to consider another brand.

 

[m1garand762]

Shop around. When I bought my last machine I shopped every dealer within half a days drive. My local dealer who is less than 5 miles from my house was the highest by a lot of money (thousands).I took him his quote and my best quote and said meet it or beat it if you don’t want me to go on a road trip. He sold it to me for $500 less than the best price I had gotten

 

[TimberFarm]

Shop around. When I bought my last machine I shopped every dealer within half a days drive. My local dealer who is less than 5 miles from my house was the highest by a lot of money (thousands).I took him his quote and my best quote and said meet it or beat it if you don’t want me to go on a road trip. He sold it to me for $500 less than the best price I had gotten

So that tells me he was out to rake you over the coals in the beginning.
Had he put the argument up of he can't sell it that cheap, he would have matched the price. The fact that he took off another $500 on top of beating them...

 

[IndyJay]

Not necessarily. You're thinking is that the "website" is constantly manned. Not so. Corporations usually hire that out and differentiations about who is manning those websites (or if at all especially w this covid stuff) can be rather large.
We had info that wasn't altered on the website for 2 months.

May be true for Dealer sites but large Corp sites are typically well managed internally as a part of Sales & Marketing strategy.