Dealer What's up with the Cub Dealers?

[wojnaroski]

Well put, but here is an even better one for you. My local Cub dealer has started asking me for advice on service questions!

Alan

 

[MessickFarmEqu]

Well put, but here is an even better one for you. My local Cub dealer has started asking me for advice on service questions!

Alan

We are also a cub cadet dealer. We really carry them simply to fill our product line and to offer parts and service. Since Cub has decided to go mass merchant the margins on the tractors are so slim its that its hard to end up ahead at the end of the year after you pay floor plan costs. On many of the LT series the margin is literaly $150-250 BEFORE you setup and deliver the machine. Its a good product for the money, but their move to the super stores really makes it hard for the independant dealer. Customers all have the perception that tractors will be cheaper at the box stores, when infact they are more expensive after all their fee's. (BTW.. this is the trend with many things, I try to avoid shipping at the box hardware stores any more).

 

[bermuda_ken]

With Cub going the big box route, it has been the BEST THING EVER for the independent Cub retailer....Here's why:

Margins on ANY whole goods are slim if not non existant. If your dealership is looking to survive on wholegood sales only, you better take accounting 101 and basic business principles over again at school.......Parts and service is where the $$$$ are made. Every machine sold today means that you will have a machine population to service in years ahead. THAT is what drives the success of the business.

If you buy at the Big Box store, they DO NOT:
1.Take trade ins
2.Deliver for free
3. Service the machine after the sale.
4.Carry service parts for the machines life.
5.Have personell to support your purchase

If you buy at the Big Box store, they DO:
1. have a very generous return policy
2. have end of season price war, blow out sales
3.have longer store hours of operation (open late and on Sunday)

If we had to survive on CC wholegoods sales only, we would have been broke years ago. Having a highly trained/reputable parts and service center keeps the $$$$$ coming in for us......

 

[diesel_nut]

So is it better to represented by a lousy dealer or not be represented at all?

Why is a dealer that doesn't 'push Cub' a lousy dealer? That does not make any sense at all.

 

[bontai_Joe]

My local Cub Cadet/White dealer closed up over 5 years ago. They were a small mom & pop shop but provided excellent service on parts for a lot of different brands and they were 4 miles away. Now have to go about 20 miles away to a guy that seems to not like customers coming in to bother him on Saturdays. And Lowes in my area no longer sells Cub, so no parts there either. Gonna be interesting to watch the next couple of years unfold.

 

[Fordlords]

That is one of the major problems to be faced: Good dealers like C&G are going to become more scarse if Cub Cadet puts any sort of sales pressure on smaller dealers such as those here in western New York, where Cub has always been a popular brand of tractor, yet the WNY dealers depend on selling more than just Cub tractors. I am a small business owner, and know accounting well, and also know that is not the most important business measure, in fact it is just figures and one of the things that matters least as there is little control over the, "come what may's," weather of business.

In this case with Cub their strategy comes to cutting out a lot of marketing segments, and when people in certain locations can no longer buy Cub Cadet or get service or parts for their machines, you say goodbye to customers. No customers=no sales=no service=no business. Add that up and you get a free internet MBA

-Fordlords-