Gittyup said:
Mark,
I went by your defunct dealer a month or so ago. Didn't stop, just noticed a CK sitting out front. Thought to myself that he looked to be a small dealer. This often indicates under capitalization, or lack of commitment. Left me wondering if he could survive in that neck of the woods operating like that. I guess he couldn't. I would think that location would be an excellent place for a dealership - plenty of farms, plenty of money, and heavy drive-by traffic. It's never good to hear that a dealer of one's owned make has failed. We need them to succeed. Maybe someone will step in and make that dealership respectable. I hope so.
Anyway, Glad it worked out for you.
Yes a small dealer. I think you have some valid points. However, in this case I'm not sure that was what the problem was. But because some things are opinion on my point I won't post it because I just don't know.
I will say this because I do know this for a fact. The service department needed to step it up BIG TIME. I don't know what the exact reasons were but the service was lacking. There was also a two or three week back log on service, simply not good. Secondly, prices were high. I think someone else here had mentioned they got a quote on a tractor from the owner that was rather high compared to other dealers. Upon inquiring why the difference in pricing the owner referred something to the effect of us being located in/around Loudoun County. Well, yes Loudoun has been booming as of late but being competitve is being competitve, plain and simple. I will say to be fair, I seem to have gotten a pretty good deal on mine when I purchase about a year ago though. Something else that I noticed was that for a small shop they had A LOT of inventory. Not necessary on the Kioti side, but as far as just stuff in general. Trimmers, blower, saws, vacs, tents, trailers, implements, battery power mowers and tools, generators, DR line, Paynes clip on forks, those stand alone parking carports, radios for tractors. There was just so much. It's nice to have options but you simply can't have everything . . . and if it's not moving, it's not moving.
Finally, we live in strange demographic. Here you have Verizon and AOL HQ with Volkswagen getting ready to move in only 10 miles away in one direction. In the other direction 7-15 miles you have two JD dealers, NH, MF, Kubota and Case all surrounded with LOTS open fields. In between it all you have all the new million dollar+ homes that people were buying a few years back. What does it all mean. I'm not sure anymore. One part of me says a Kioti dealership could have or should have worked at least for the "smart" buyer. On the other hand people that have money to spend may have driven right past the Kioti dealer on to the JD,NH, and Kubota shops and bought there for the obvious reasons.
Perhaps a couple years from now when Kioti gets a bit more recognition things will be different. My neighbor who farms 900 acres/200 head, still thinks my tractor is a Kubota. But what can you do.
