John Deere reducing dealerships

[Farma Parma]

I agree with you regarding distances but the amount of traffic does not compare to somewhere like USA whose roads outside big cities is minimal.its a nightmare travelling anywhere in the uk
Nick...

Was just going to say that

 

[Andrew]

The distances travelled in this country are fairly minimal compared to others I'd have thought.
Most likely decided they want to extend the distances a bit.

Yes but the setup is different as well. In America the farms are generally bigger with bigger, fewer tractors.

I appreciate that John Deere aren’t about to do away with all their dealers. However, what about a middle ground of one or two dealers or service agents covering the whole country with only a few depots, maybe north, south, east and west and engineers working out of vans?

Do you really need to a salesperson to buy a tractor, why not spec it online, you get a price, you either order it or not.

Ultimately, we are looking industry consolidation, the same that has been happening throughout the industry for years.

That is exactly what JD are doing - bigger, fewer, dealerships. A lot of people may buy a tractor online, but a lot of others wouldn’t as you can’t haggle with a computer. Then you’ve got to have staff to show their face at shows, value trade ins, etc, a salesman's salary isn’t that much then.

If you go into a supermarket and use the self service checkout, they don’t knock the wages for the person you haven’t used off the price of your groceries do they? So why would a tractor manufacturer?

 

[ollie989898]

Why don't more companies use the Amazon platform?
If they (JD,CNH,class,etc) listed their entire stock at the main warehouse (and even in dealers stock rooms), and you could look it up and have it delivered next day for no charge they could cope from that side easily enough.

Amazon make money out of sellers. It is not free and they have stringent business terms.

 

[seedman stains]

All valid points of discussion,but when you are the big boss you stamp your foot and dont give 2 fs to the little man at the bottom its all about adapting to the situation as in all life.

 

[ollie989898]

Ultimately as we know a brand is not the be all and end all- ultimately (most) farmers value service and machine back up which is probably what counts beyond the colour of the machine itself.

If JD simply kick out anyone they consider small fry then those dealers will surely take up other brands and simply sell and service them instead. Dealer relationship and service quality is important to many people because who else is going to get you back up and running at 10pm on a Sunday?

 

[glasshouse]

Rank stupidity

 

[Farma Parma]

Ultimately as we know a brand is not the be all and end all- ultimately (most) farmers value service and machine back up which is probably what counts beyond the colour of the machine itself.

If JD simply kick out anyone they consider small fry then those dealers will surely take up other brands and simply sell and service them instead. Dealer relationship and service quality is important to many people because who else is going to get you back up and running at 10pm on a Sunday?

Not the Biggest Selling Brand in the World by the looks of it on here eh..... OOOpppsss

 

[Andrew]

Ultimately as we know a brand is not the be all and end all- ultimately (most) farmers value service and machine back up which is probably what counts beyond the colour of the machine itself.

If JD simply kick out anyone they consider small fry then those dealers will surely take up other brands and simply sell and service them instead. Dealer relationship and service quality is important to many people because who else is going to get you back up and running at 10pm on a Sunday?

Agreed. Our JD dealership used to be a small shed, with 3 fitters, a storeman, and a salesman. The customer service was spot on, and response times were very good. It got taken over by a larger dealer, who have just built a new premises, everything is ten times bigger, now there is 22 staff work there. Response times aren’t as good as it seems a bit ‘faceless’. Our JD numbers have dropped from 9 and 2 hired in summer to 3. When the time comes to replace those I’m not sure I’ll look at JD.

 

[Dealer]

JD have effectively taken over the dealers and stolen their businesses

All of these franchisees are now financially controlled by JD as they control the funding for stock, trade ins & own hire fleet's in the form of in house stock floor plans

None of companies could fund the stock infantry on their own now.

All dealers are on a 12 month's only dealer agreement renewed annually

Dealers originally would have owned their own premises and could trade within their own banking arrangements along comes a big supplier offering 6 months interest free terms for stock ordered so said dealers fill the yards and enjoy the spoils

At that point they have lost control of their businesses

JD now have control

Staff can be legally transferred via tupe transfer so as long as you can rent some buildings a new start up can appear overnight with readymade customers and staff

All dealers left knew what the plan was in 2010 when they announced that dealers needed to have 25M turnover with them and started attacking each other to stay on the gravy train

Now they have upped the anti to 100M so it starts again

JD amortise the profit on the product the day it leaves the factory as they invoice jd bank and get paid

The dealer is then liable for payment

JD uk is a marketing company in affect so they only need to show small profits to cover costs

Take this one step further and then have some large end user customers who can not go anywhere else because independent finance companies would not want to be lending large credit lines to these companies

Take the large hire companies how many of the biggest run green and yellow fleets.

 

[ollie989898]

JD have effectively taken over the dealers and stolen their businesses

All of these franchisees are now financially controlled by JD as they control the funding for stock, trade ins & own hire fleet's in the form of in house stock floor plans

None of companies could fund the stock infantry on their own now.

All dealers are on a 12 month's only dealer agreement renewed annually

Dealers originally would have owned their own premises and could trade within their own banking arrangements along comes a big supplier offering 6 months interest free terms for stock ordered so said dealers fill the yards and enjoy the spoils

At that point they have lost control of their businesses

JD now have control

Staff can be legally transferred via tupe transfer so as long as you can rent some buildings a new start up can appear overnight with readymade customers and staff

All dealers left knew what the plan was in 2010 when they announced that dealers needed to have 25M turnover with them and started attacking each other to stay on the gravy train

Now they have upped the anti to 100M so it starts again

JD amortise the profit on the product the day it leaves the factory as they invoice jd bank and get paid

The dealer is then liable for payment

JD uk is a marketing company in affect so they only need to show small profits to cover costs

Take this one step further and then have some large end user customers who can not go anywhere else because independent finance companies would not want to be lending large credit lines to these companies

Take the large hire companies how many of the biggest run green and yellow fleets.

If that is true I am not surprised- an example of an American company and their fudge-you model of capitalism.

 

[Dealer]

If that is true I am not surprised- an example of an American company and their fudge-you model of capitalism.

Certainly is true

First hand knowledge

 

[quattro]

Certainly is true

First hand knowledge

could it be they didn’t have such financial control over Sharmans and that’s why they got rid,I’d have thought they would be rather cash rich(Sharmans/Barclays)

 

[vantage]

Finning caterpillar are the worlds biggest cat dealer covering Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Chilie, Ireland and the UK. I have only had to deal with them a couple of times, but I wouldn’t have said their scale had any bearing on the quality of service.

At last I’ve found out what Santa Claus does for the other 364 days of the year, he’s the Finning fitter! Nobody else can work at his speed, he’s probably even got time for tea breaks!

 

[kill]

Where would they work out of

Bateman's run out of their family farm in Devon as they have since pre sprayer days. I understand they are expanding their workshops over there because they are so busy which is great.

 

[njneer]

Johnston tractors of Carlisle jumped before they were pushed away by Deere, and now sell Valtra.

An awful lot of Valtras, that used to be Deere sales......

Johnson tractors lost Deere first then D.W Toppin was robbed of Valtra. I’m told they are not shifting many in Dumfriesshire which was also the problem with Deere. Not sure about Carlisle. It’s early days and a new
product to all of the business though.

Simply sacking one dealer to give it to another doesn’t automatically ensure the customer base will follow.
If it is the service and relationship you have with that dealer that you value not necessarily the product that they sell.
I think that Toppins and Johnston’s are proof of that .
Both seem to have turned a lot of their previous customers to their new brands colours and John Deere , who started this ball rolling don’t seem to have seen any improvement on their numbers for the respective areas.

 

[Wobblebox]

I was talking to someone who works at a rival JD dealership yesterday and he thinks there’s more to this than meets the eye, he wouldn’t elaborate too much but said the Barclay family who own Sharmans also own a dealership in Scotland (HRN Tractors I think) and got into trouble with JD for registering tractors and selling them cheap abroad to improve their sales figures, not saying the same has happened here, but....

 

[Farma Parma]

I was talking to someone who works at a rival JD dealership yesterday and he thinks there’s more to this than meets the eye, he wouldn’t elaborate too much but said the Barclay family who own Sharmans also own a dealership in Scotland (HRN Tractors I think) and got into trouble with JD for registering tractors and selling them cheap abroad to improve their sales figures, not saying the same has happened here, but....

8 dealerships if Google isnt lying across the bulk of scotland to be precise, pretty much all of scotland.

 

[Dealer]

Two families independent from each other

As for the export bit

All dealers rely on some export as the used market in the uk can not provide enough customers

 

[Farma Parma]

Two families independent from each other

As for the export bit

All dealers rely on some export as the used market in the uk can not provide enough customers

Netherton Tractors & HRN all same family tho aint they? yes they might be completely sep business's

 

[Johnnyboxer]

If that is true I am not surprised- an example of an American company and their fudge-you model of capitalism.

Of course it's true

Well known and accurately put