Merchants closing Accounts

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
Anyone else gone to use their Countrywide Farmers accounts and found non existant or closed ?
Apparently if you do not spend 2.5k a year they are closing them ?
Typical items run of the mill then big ticket items when required so varies.

We have been with them for generations being old West Midland Farmers before these .
Not received any letters or emails what ever ?
All paperfree and bacs paid these days so NOT costing them much to administer ?
Was always handy to "pop into" to get something but if you got to pay on buy we will be thinking twice as so many other fight for your business ?
Do they want Farmers ?
Looks like they only want the "lifestyle" lot !!!.
With chemicals sold to Hutchinsons etc. Will this be their next "BAD" Mistake ???
 

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
If you take out the high ticket items fert, seeds & chems £2500.00 is a lot of money to spend on small items in a year, they'er probably looking for mostly credit card payments for quick money turnover.

I'm happy with anyone ordering anything over £10.00! :)
Your blumming right there ?
Girls on counter said lot of farmers coming in -picking stuff up and "booking"it to say their accounts not there ?
 

GTB

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Had this happen to us with a Jewson and Howdens account. Jewson just closed the account but Howdens to be fair phoned up to ask if we wanted to keep the account live. We said yes as we had some building work on the go at the time so they kindly booked out a tape measure to keep the account live for another 18 months. :LOL:

Howdens chap said they had no end of dormant accounts which were a potential security risk. Can't see that having no account is such a big deal in this day and age unless you buy regularly. After all we all carry plastic these days.
 

Sussex Martin

Member
Location
Burham Kent
We never close an account down, if it isn't used for 12 months we revert it to pro-forma. My view is that if it's a year or more since you used it you don't need it. we have suppliers with minimum spends, one is in the process of closing any account worth less than £50k.
 

GTB

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
We never close an account down, if it isn't used for 12 months we revert it to pro-forma. My view is that if it's a year or more since you used it you don't need it. we have suppliers with minimum spends, one is in the process of closing any account worth less than £50k.
What do you mean by pro-forma if you don't mind me asking?
 

GTB

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
You order it, we send the invoice, you pay the invoice, we send the goods. Useful for those customers that think we can keep paying our bills whether they pay theirs or not ;).
There are a lot of customers like that around the country. Local independent feed merchant is having more and more bother. He was complaining to me the other day how much money he had out. I told him to cull his accounts and only keep the good payers. He said that he would if he could but if he closed some of them he'd never see his money. :mad:
 

Sussex Martin

Member
Location
Burham Kent
There are a lot of customers like that around the country. Local independent feed merchant is having more and more bother. He was complaining to me the other day how much money he had out. I told him to cull his accounts and only keep the good payers. He said that he would if he could but if he closed some of them he'd never see his money. :mad:
Always a problem when people owe you, we keep a close eye on the bad payers and put the account on stop, once they pay we then make the account pro-forma. We have on a couple of occasions had to go to court to get paid, the last one was for £6k+ and £1.5k in costs. The most galling part of it though is that the ones that try to turn you over are the ones that you've helped the most:(.
 

GTB

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Always a problem when people owe you, we keep a close eye on the bad payers and put the account on stop, once they pay we then make the account pro-forma. We have on a couple of occasions had to go to court to get paid, the last one was for £6k+ and £1.5k in costs. The most galling part of it though is that the ones that try to turn you over are the ones that you've helped the most:(.
I won't like that but you have my sympathy.
 

lamb89

Member
I think the reason countrywide is doing it is they are in financial difficulty. There shutting branch's local. I wound be surprized if the receivers are involved.
 
Location
East Mids
They've just closed our 2 nearest stores and advised us of our remaining nearest one which is an hour away. Local store sale 70% off was not even advised to account holders though, just that it was closing. So I doubt if we will trade with them again. I think they are trying to drive as much trade as possible to internet sales. The regional sales rep sounded very hacked off when he phoned to remind us he is still there (he is new to us as they have made our local one redundant. Obviously trouble at mill. Sadly Mole will benefit locally, I much preferred Countrywide.
 

Sussex Martin

Member
Location
Burham Kent
Cull the bad payers martin best policy and gain better ones
Yes Kev it's what we do on a regular basis, they get put on pro-forma and usually end up going somewhere else which suits us fine.
We have to be a little flexible with payment as my customers have bad payers also. You get to know the ones that are taking the pee as opposed to the genuine ones.
We have to have a huge 'float' as we rarely get any significant sums of money in before the first of the month when our manufacturers bills are due and they have to be paid on time.
 

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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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