Jack from CHINA tractor factory, say hello to everyone here

[super55]

Jack,

Welcome to forum and wish you the best of success in trying to get your company inside the US market share.

For me personally I wish some chinese products were more easily obtained in the US because on the micro/mini farming category China has a ton of products thats simply just aren't made in the US and there is a specialty market for them.

A couple of the items that I had seen were a mini-combine/harvester, mini-round baler, seed cleaners and such. We have this stuff in the US but it is all set up for large scale farming. I looked long and hard at a mini-combine for harvesting grains/seeds and seen tons of them for sale on alibaba but only found one person in the US that actually sold that model and asking price was 2.5 times higher than what alibaba was asking for. The downfall with using alibaba is that you have to send money western union, arrange a shipper and are unfamiliar with the whole process. Even if you could get someone on the west coast to act as your US distributor would be a huge asset.

Quality of product is a huge selling point. I did a lot of research on Foton tractors and almost all the reviews have been very positive. Price being the huge one. When Foton can sell a 50hp w/cab and 4 in 1 bucket and dual rear remotes for under 20 grand in the US I assure you buyers will take a long hard look at it. The problem is everybody says parts are hard to come by.

 

[Jack Yuan]

BTW, I realize your advise is your business and is still free speech.....well, at least in our country.

thank you. I hope the advice was good, and it was just general business advice; I had a background in marketing and sales and
felt I was doing the retired advisor bit. ETA never asked for my advice, btw...

If Jack has learned anything here, it's that we are a pretty nice group of people with common interests and a common concern for fair play.
And we are careful about not biting the hand that feeds us, particularly if that hand is honorable.
Jack, I hope you stick with us, but maybe as an individual, a father, a tractor owner, a grower of food. Your experiences are welcome, but perhaps a discussion of business strategy on how to compete with US companies is not a good idea for a public forum.

Thank you for your remind me, I will stop talking about my company marketing strategy.
I know that my company copy from other's products will make most of member here dislike me, but I still want to tell you the truth about me, I think honest is the base of communication.
The fact is: my competitor will keep copying other's no matter we copy or not, and the government ignore this always, so that's why in the future I will apply for US patent not Chinese patent.

I will be stick with everybody here, please inform me if some topic is not suitable for here, I will obey the rule here.

by the way, what does "ETA" mean?

 

[Pixguy]

ETA=Everything Attachments.
Although I've never purchased from them or know them, I've heard very good things about them and they help pay for this site by sponsoring and advertising on TBN.

We all deal with competition, but we respect patents.

I enjoy your view from the far east. Be well.

 

[Jack Yuan]

Mercedes assigns one person to take responsibility for their AMG engines and he "signs" the engine when it's done.
That isn't going to happen in the farm implement business, but the lesson is one to learn.

All companies check out their competitors' products. But checking them out and copying them is very different.
We see copying as cheating, and why do business with a cheater?
There, it is said. Jack needs to understand this sensitivity, needs to make sure his company can show some innovation of their own.

this is a archaic brick, you can see worker signed his name on it, that means he will be punished if there is a quality problem.
China lost so many tradition in recent decades. In that time, we were so proud on the world, but now...... when could we pick up those lost proud again?

 

[Jack Yuan]

ETA=Everything Attachments.
Although I've never purchased from them or know them, I've heard very good things about them and they help pay for this site by sponsoring and advertising on TBN.

We all deal with competition, but we respect patents.

I enjoy your view from the far east. Be well.

Thank you, I like your sign.

 

[daugen]

The problem is everybody says parts are hard to come by.

It's my understanding that Northern Tools switched over to Foton, from Jinma.
Northern Tools touts the fact they carry a good supply of parts for their tractors, which I think
would be a must if one is to be successful doing mail order/internet tractor sales.

I'm curious, Jack, what is agricultural/machinery/engine parts availability like in China? Do you have the equivalent of our UPS where parts are ordered and actually show up in less than one week? For example, if you needed a new engine water pump for your Jinma, where would you go to buy it? It would be interesting to compare what it costs you there and what the same part costs here in the US.
thanks.

 

[Jack Yuan]

I think the parts supply is a common problem for any oversea brand. when I used work in that sand buggy company, my customers always complain about the parts supply, even this problem is there when we set up our parts warehouse in US.

So I would like to explain something about Chinese factory supply chain. For example the tractor factory, they claim they make the engine all by themself, but in fact, they design it, but they didn't make all the spare parts of them, such like water pump, starter, carburetor, etc these parts must be purchase from some other vendor. So this is a example to explain the factory didn't make many parts by themself.

And let me explain the reason for this happen, it's easy to understand, for a factory, the price cost is very different between making 100 units and making 10000 units. so the division of labour is clear-cut, and this is one reason why we can make cheaper products. The more we make, the cheaper the price is.

So this model will make cause problem when customer ask for parts. For example, when a customer ask for parts from A who sell products directly from. then A will ask for parts from B, then B ask from C....... so it will cost long time for this, even there maybe some mistake when the information transmit.

For me, if I want to set up a parts shop, I can get the parts with much more cheaper price than you in US, because I will contact with the real water pump manufacturer, not the tractor factory. and one more thing about this supply chain model, each link will ask for some profit, so the final price when US customer get will be much more expensive if he can buy from the real vendor.

 

[Jack Yuan]

So if northern tool can supply enough parts, I think they must have a real huge inventory for parts, that means a huge financial pressure, I think it's worth if this can make their customer satisfied.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

It will be interesting to hear from others if Northern Tool has a good parts system.

As far as copying, It is one thing to counterfeit a purse or rolex watch or dvd movies (which I totally agree it should not happen) but, tractor implements are mostly all simple engineering and been around for decades.

Jack, I've been in manufacturing for over 30 years and I've always told people, "If China ever figures out the quality system like Japan did, watch out." Quality is very expensive to implement and it takes a long time to establish, but you have to have a supply chain for raw materials that is also good quality or you have nothing. Buy the cheapest steel, get bad quality. Do you want the oats in front of the horse, or behind the horse?

 

[Jack Yuan]

Jack,

Welcome to forum and wish you the best of success in trying to get your company inside the US market share.

For me personally I wish some chinese products were more easily obtained in the US because on the micro/mini farming category China has a ton of products thats simply just aren't made in the US and there is a specialty market for them.

A couple of the items that I had seen were a mini-combine/harvester, mini-round baler, seed cleaners and such. We have this stuff in the US but it is all set up for large scale farming. I looked long and hard at a mini-combine for harvesting grains/seeds and seen tons of them for sale on alibaba but only found one person in the US that actually sold that model and asking price was 2.5 times higher than what alibaba was asking for. The downfall with using alibaba is that you have to send money western union, arrange a shipper and are unfamiliar with the whole process. Even if you could get someone on the west coast to act as your US distributor would be a huge asset.

Quality of product is a huge selling point. I did a lot of research on Foton tractors and almost all the reviews have been very positive. Price being the huge one. When Foton can sell a 50hp w/cab and 4 in 1 bucket and dual rear remotes for under 20 grand in the US I assure you buyers will take a long hard look at it. The problem is everybody says parts are hard to come by.

Hope Foton guys can see your suggestion. Mini agri machine is suitable for China, because people don't have very large farm as US, you can easily find these vendor in China, also alibaba is a good way to find them, in fact the second thing when I came to this company is to suggest my boss to set up alibaba shop.