When’s a deal done?

Works both ways. I did a deal on a new pickup once. Shook hands and wrote a cheque out for a deposit. By time I got home I had an email from sales manager to say they wouldn’t honour it.

Live and learn. I won’t do business with them again and have since bought 2 new vehicles of the same brand from a different dealer.

Which proves that a verbal deal isnt a deal. Nothing is a deal until money paid. That's what money is for ie the guarantee.
 

texelburger

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Herefordshire
Well if I agree a deal then that's it.If some other company come back with a cheaper deal I will still honour the original one even if I'm losing out.It's the way I was brought up and I would expect anyone doing business with me to be the same.
I think,long term,your better off being honourable.
 

Machman

New Member
Well if I agree a deal then that's it.If some other company come back with a cheaper deal I will still honour the original one even if I'm losing out.It's the way I was brought up and I would expect anyone doing business with me to be the same.
I think,long term,your better off being honourable.
That’s how I was bought up, you win some you lose some but if you agreed at the time it was the right decision to make!
 

Galcam

Member
I would always give a few thousand euro as a sign of good faith. I have two on order now for delivery in March and I have 3k dep without been asked. I would expect to loose it if I walked away from the deal because I changed my mind...which I won’t. Some peoples still have a good word!!
 

Finn farmer

Member
What p!sses me off is when you get quotes for things then you go with the cheapest quote then one of the other dealers comes back and says let me beat that price
no way I’ll let them...if you can’t give your best price first then don’t come back again
I've told this before, but lets go again. Last year we were buying a tractor. In the end we had Case and Mf in the competition. Mf dealer said that his final price is 93k€ and that's the best he can do. Well, we had Case on demo and he showed up to our yard and asked about the price he gave us. I said that it's way off, it should be starting with a 7 for us to make a deal. He then dropped the price to 79k€. Dad came in, heard the price and said that he had just bought the Case and would've done the deal with Mf dealer if he had been honest with the price the time he said it was final. Maybe he'll be more cooperative the next time.
 

Dave W

Member
Location
chesterfield
I consider a deal done with a handshake or if done over the phone a verbal agreement and invoice issued.
I wouldn't dream of selling to someone else in the mean time and I'd expect a similar level of courtesy from the buyer.
sadly the number of timewasters is on the increase. Do a deal, send invoice, hear nothing. Chase up with messages and ignored phone calls. Still nothing.
I couldn't care less if they've changed their mind. Just have the decency to say so.
It's probably happened 20+ times this year. 3 of those were supposed reputable dealer who I'm very tempted to name and shame but I won't!
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Last big machinery purchase I made, was a 300 hp FWA tractor
Quote from the 3 local dealers ( JD, Case & NH )
Case were out of the ballpark ( which is ok, cos I didn’t like the dealer anyway ), NH was best quote. Did the deal, rang JD out of courtesy to let them know, they then said they would better the NH figures. I said “too late, you should have given me that figure when I asked for a quote & I would have bought it, but you didn’t & Im sticking with NH”
When getting quotes, I made it clear I was going around the 3 dealers . . .
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
About 10 or 15 years ago when the round module JD cotton pickers first came out, a local contractor was looking at buying 2 of them ( $1million machine ). He went around all the “local” JD dealerships. Chesterfields at Moree came in about $50K cheaper than the local, Peel Valley, at Gunnedah, but he thought, yeah nah, $50K isn’t much on a $2million deal ( these machines earn well over $200/ha when working ), he would support the local dealer. Anyway, he was sitting in the Peel Valley office, about to sign the contract ordering 2 new cotton pickers ( they had to be ordered like 6 months in advance from the US ) & he mentioned the Chesterfield deal & his rationale behind his thinking. The salesman said something like “well, who do you think was going to service them, we wouldn’t & wouldn’t carry any parts for you if you did buy elsewhere” ( remember, these were very new machines in the market, with a lot of new / different / specialist parts compared to any previous JD pickers )
So - Steve put the pen down, got up & bought 2 new pickers from Chesterfield’s for $50K less. And never had a problem with service / parts or backup from them, no matter where he was working . . .
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Last big machinery purchase I made, was a 300 hp FWA tractor
Quote from the 3 local dealers ( JD, Case & NH )
Case were out of the ballpark ( which is ok, cos I didn’t like the dealer anyway ), NH was best quote. Did the deal, rang JD out of courtesy to let them know, they then said they would better the NH figures. I said “too late, you should have given me that figure when I asked for a quote & I would have bought it, but you didn’t & Im sticking with NH”
When getting quotes, I made it clear I was going around the 3 dealers . . .
When i was in Australia the farmer had cancelled a new tractor because of floods! Changed days.

I will bounce prices around when quoting but after deals done its final.
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
I bought a new plough nearly 2 years ago.asked to pay 10% on ordering that did not sit well with me as we been dealing with company since the 70s buying tractors and combines..paid anyway and then it turned up 2 weeks later than I wanted it then rep woukd not deliver till I paid the rest of the price which again I reluctantly did as I had no option.plough was delivered and 3 weeks later I got an invoice for payment in 28 days.that rep would be as wellcome here now as a fart in a space suit.
Nick...
 

PuG

Member
We agreed to a teleyhandler from a dealership late in the evening (arranged visit on the way back from Winchester), shaken hands, agreed to sort out paperwork first thing in the morning, phone them up and they'd gone and sold it that night after we left. Ended up buying through Howards Machinery, very pleased with, even did a large repair before shipping
 

J 1177

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Durham, UK
Bought last tractor, shook hands on the deal. New tractor was ordered, my old tractor was taken and loan tractor supplied until I got the new one. (I really liked that loan tractor)
.all done on trust and word of mouth.
New one came early, spec as I wanted, and it's been spot on. Very happy so far.
 

Drillman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Did the sales manager have telling off
From his boss
Not sure but him and the sales rep got a pretty major bollocking from me!
Which proves that a verbal deal isnt a deal. Nothing is a deal until money paid. That's what money is for ie the guarantee.
thats the annoying bit I left them a deposit which I thought sealed the deal.

for anyone wondering it was Stoneacre Ford at York. They didn’t even have the decency to send me my cheque back. My advice is avoid them like the plague. The dealer I did buy from the following week actually gave me a better price. And have since bought further vehicles from them.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
So we sell machinery...but we’ve had more people back out on deals in the last few months than I’ve had in 15 years on sales...
So the latest one , a customer asks for quotes to swap a loader tractor, his used one a week down the line develops and issue , so we agree that we will fix it on the deal of the tractor at cost price, lend him a demo tractor over Christmas as long as we order the tractor before Christmas as the price from the manufacturer will be going up by a reasonable amount.
Customer told us to get one ordered, they also confirmed this the next day verbally.

We rang the customer today to say we could do with getting his in to do the repair, as we can’t have the demo out indefinitely...to be told that we are thousands out to another brand, when my rep asked if there was anything we could do with spec...was told that he does a deal he sticks to it...

Our normal procedure is to confirm the order in writing and get an order confirmation signed from the customer, because of the Christmas break this had not been completed.
The second one I’ve had in a few months, the previous had a written order from the cimustoner, a signed confirmation, finance signed..but two managers disagreed and changed there mind, leaving me with a special order tractor in stock...
I’m old and wise enough to know that it’s just one of those things...but am curious to people’s thoughts...
Surely with the second one you could make them pay for it as signed a contract?
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
On a similar theme I bought a brand new case 590sle digger,my avatar back in 2001 when I started my ground work business.i bought it from the now defunct FT Construction in Swainsthorpe.i went in for several weeks before ordering and they did not know me from Adam.i got the machine delivered and used it for a couple of weeks before the rep called and asked for a cheque which I duly paid.the machine cost me £315000 which was a huge amount of money then but I was greatful for the trust they showed in me.
Nick...
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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