my stihl dealer told me some bad news

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BloodOnTheIce said:
I hear ya Tom, we do about 250 pieces of Stihl a year, this year I'll probably do 300-325. In the Northeast you have to buy 29,000$ worth of wholegoods, part, and accessories to stay a Stihl dealer. Which if you can't meet that then your might as well shut the doors anyway. I'd kill to have only 4 dealers within 20 miles. I've got other 10 dealers within 15 miles, and a whole lot less than 35,000 people. By the way Tom I'm gonna use your free coke and hot dog idea, to attract customers.
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Cool beans. Far as a guy not being able to roll out 50 units the sad part is that little bit of business isn't worth the administration costs to deal with him. Back in the day it was but not now. I think my rep last told me $30,000 worth of goods sold in a years time is about as low as they're interested in.

Hell I got a list here thats $20,000 my rep gave me for items I don't really move that much of. He says you take it and I'll give you one year terms. I go what. He goes yup, take whats on the list and I'll bill you in 3/2011. I'm looking hard at that list. How many $350.00 vacs can one man sell,LOLOL
 
Slamm said:
In Mayfield, KY the John Deere dealer is now the new Stihl dealer. I refuse to purchase anything, anymore from them. They don't know squat about saws. They have a very small parts inventory and common things like 660 chain adjusters and clutches for 084's are all "special order" and I have to pay for the shipping on them.

I tried to order a new handlebar for a 361. That took about 10 minutes of explaining what a handlebar on a 361 was. To top it off the guy acted like he had never heard of a 361??!!??!?!?


Sam
Click to expand...

A 12 year old with a media cat can have that part ordered in 60 seconds..

With these new dealers you just give them the part number.
Thats about all they can comprehend.

The old guys are dying off. But you got to remember too, With the new fangled technology thats moving in they may want to retire early.

Got some big changes ahead in many markets.

But thats nothing new either,, change happens.

3 years ago I bought a shop that closed that sold saws since 1960.

They started with Homelite, then Mac. Over the years he sold Dolmar, Pioneer, jonsered, Husky, Partner, Echo and Shindawa. He picked up Sthl in the 70's and thats all he was selling when He passed 4 years ago at 82 years old.

He was still using the IPL's and the telly phone for his parts. When I cleaned the shop I discovered that he had retired 20 years ago and had just buried many parts with trash and ordered more. I found new parts dating back to 1950 in that mess.

Thats old school.
Stihl has new programs and new products that are not
"old school" friendly any more.

Box store thinking with a little support built in but they dont care about fixing saws now,, they just want to sell new ones.

Very soon I will be buying several new 460 mags and maybe a couple 361's

The 046 mag I recently traded off gave me great service for 9 years.

I dont use them much now for more than firewood but I cut 8 - 10 cords a year. I use to use them a lot more for land clearing but that went down the pipe and now I dont know if it will ever come back to work my eguipment anymore.

So I am just going to lay up a lifetime supply now before you need a computer to change your spark plug.

Watching Brad tear that 362 down was enough for me.


Signed " OLD SCHOOL "
 
BloodOnTheIce said:
I hear ya Tom, we do about 250 pieces of Stihl a year, this year I'll probably do 300-325. In the Northeast you have to buy 29,000$ worth of wholegoods, part, and accessories to stay a Stihl dealer. Which if you can't meet that then your might as well shut the doors anyway. I'd kill to have only 4 dealers within 20 miles. I've got other 10 dealers within 15 miles, and a whole lot less than 35,000 people. By the way Tom I'm gonna use your free coke and hot dog idea, to attract customers.
Click to expand...

Did you say you only have to do $29g to be a dealer with Stihl.

Can I Sell Stihl out of my Hay Operation if I sell 29G ?
 
sawbones said:
A 12 year old with a media cat can have that part ordered in 60 seconds..

With these new dealers you just give them the part number.
Thats about all they can comprehend.

The old guys are dying off. But you got to remember too, With the new fangled technology thats moving in they may want to retire early.


Signed " OLD SCHOOL "
Click to expand...

Well if its going to be that way, can we just order the parts ourselves from Stihl. I literally will wait and drive 2 hours out of my way to go to Benton, IL than deal with a Stihl dealer that 10 minutes away. They are that ignorant ....nice people, but clueless.

If I have to have "Lil Jimmy" order my parts on the computer, I wish I could just do it myself. Then if I have to pay to have it shipped to a dealer's address across town, I just as soon pay to have it shipped to my house. That saves me more time in the long run and a lot of hassle with ignorant dealer employees.

Sam
 
weimedog said:
I'm curious how this plays out over time. We have a very large John Deere Dealer in town..but so far I haven't seen Stihl show up there....and maybe thats because the Stilh dealership went to the OTHER big tractor/powersports dealer in town (Along with the Husqvarna dealership)..the one with local connections. They took it away from the OLD Stilh dealer who had a little store front and was on a back road....now he has Dolmar and Echo and is doing fine.
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In the next town over, the old Stihl dealer is the Kubota / New Holland dealer.
In 2008, the Deere dealer took on Stihl too. The Husky dealer is the NAPA auto parts store. The old Husky dealer in a nearby town is now the Dolmar dealer in a little garage next to his rural house.
 
This happens in every industry. Expand, expand, expand, then figure out you overexpanded and have some less than committed dealers who signed on because you told them it would be "easy money". Then you have to trim the deadwood, hopefully didn't kill any dedicated good guys, and behave for a few years until someone else gets the "world domination" bug in the company, and it starts over again.

The worst thing in the world is to have too many dealers with too many of them not being committed to the line. The second worst thing is to not have enough dealers. I'm sure Stihl's move was largely to block growth from competitors, especially Husky who was sort of down for the count. It appears that they are coming back a bit in this area, which is a good thing. big Stihl dealer just brought in the full line, and I've been buying parts from them regularly. Nice guys, just all the way across town. Lost the one closest to me, but they still have some stock left. Broke up over lawn equipment. The other dealer did Husky lawn equipment, but not saws. They are still at the "bring in the parts numbers" stage with no real parts inventory. But they will mail the parts across town, which saves me time and money.

Fewer, healthier, more committed dealers is always the best way to go. Nothing I enjoy more than to go into a dealer with guys that know something were we can have a conversation about an issue. I'm far enough along that I don't mind handing them a list of stuff to order with PNs, but it's great when they have a clue and can even help you sometimes. That's what a dealer is supposed to be.
 
This goes on in almost every business. Go to your local auto parts store and ask for a carb kit for a '70's model vehicle. The kid mumbles the word "carb" several times, turns to the oldest counterman and asks "where would I look for this?" or something similar.

When they finally find one, it's been opened, resealed, reboxed, rebranded, returned, etc. Brand Name parts? Nope, over-seas replacements, this one is "just like the original, only cheaper".

When you make your living with this stuff, it's another blow to the economy and a pile of heartache. Sooner or later, it's not worth the effort. Early retirement may be the only way out.
 
In the end it will for the most part be like everything else in life, the cream will rise to the top, those that give outstanding customer service, parts and product support, keep their overhead as low as possible, so they can give the best price will survive. Tommy is right, the Deere dealers who don't embrace the brand and support it with knowledgeable sales people and repair techs along with the Ace's of the world who do the same thing, don't reflect much of a threat long term. It just like the small sporting goods stores, Wal-Mart made it tough as hell on them for years, now that the tree huggers at Wal-Mart have decided that the sporting goods customer is not represenative of the customer they want and are in the process of phasing out firearms sales, hunting and fishing, minimal baseball, football and team sports, focusing instead on exercise and camping, I think you may see a resurgense of sucessful small mom and pop type sporting goods stores in smaller markets. +1 on the administrative cost, sometimes it just dosen't make sense to keep throwing good money after bad. Wal-Mart,Sam's, Costco and others have closed locations that continue to under perform, you have to clean up the books occaisionally, hopefully the regional reps have the sense to make exceptions based on what they see long term.
 
THALL10326 said:
If he can't sell 50 units a year then he's been going outta business for sometime. 150 units among 3 dealers in a town of 8000, man thats pitiful. I'm selling 600-700 units in a town of 35,000 and I got 4 other dealers within a 20
mile radius selling almost as much per dealer. Mortons in Fredericksburg Va is selling over 2000 units a year in a town that in the 2000 cenus had 19,000 people.
Click to expand...


Bad comparison, Tom. The town of Leesburg may have 35,000, but the area you are describing, including the dealers 20 miles away, covers TWO MILLION.

http://www.novaregion.org/index.aspx?nid=101


Fredreicsburg supports an area whose population is about ONE MILLION.

http://www.fra-yes.org/demographics-workforce.php



Those are very different situations from a small, ISOLATED town of 8,000. And that's just population numbers. You also have to compare average income. I suspect that little town of 8,000 has a slightly lower average income than Northern Virginia.


If this is true, it's not hard to figure out what's behind it. They want to eliminate dealers who aren't SERIOUS. They don't want to be a sideline. Every dealer on their books is a bit of overhead for them, so it does make sense for them to get rid of non-performers.

However, they need to take into account the demographics of each dealer. A "one size fits all" policy is a bad policy.
 
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taxmantoo said:
In the next town over, the old Stihl dealer is the Kubota / New Holland dealer.
In 2008, the Deere dealer took on Stihl too. The Husky dealer is the NAPA auto parts store. The old Husky dealer in a nearby town is now the Dolmar dealer in a little garage next to his rural house.
Click to expand...



There was a local Jred dealer like that years ago in my area ....Best service and A1 to deal with .....When he retired it was not good for jred in this area...:cry::cry:



.
 
Muffler Bearing said:
This could cure my CAD!


:monkey:
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The initial commitment is a lot more than 29K$, you have to first be a legit business, with all that entails. First of all you have to sign you life away, and sign up with a finance company, then you can apply to be a Stihl dealer. Your first parts and equipment order is usually 50,000$-75,000$, plus about 20,000$ in displays, and a another couple thousand in advertising, special tools. They can set you up pretty good for about 100,000$.
 
I bought my 346 and 365 from a small dealer(it was an ace hardware but dealer knew his stuff). After he sold the store within 9 months no more husky's sold there, the local runnings store picked up husky, but no service. Was thinking about getting a ne346(got the deer in the headlight look when I asked about one) and closest servicing dealer is now 60 miles away! We do have a stihl dealer in town. Don't know how many saws they sell, they are also a caseih dealer. I ended up with a dolmar from a new dealer in town, guy used to be the service tech at the hardware store. The word is getting out about this place and he is starting to sell alot of saws, with service to back it up! I refuse to buy a saw from a box store or dealer that doesn't service them. Maybe in the future I will have to drive 60 miles to find that but for now I'm lucky it's only 10 miles away.
 
BlueRidgeMark said:
Bad comparison, Tom. The town of Leesburg may have 35,000, but the area you are describing, including the dealers 20 miles away, covers TWO MILLION.

http://www.novaregion.org/index.aspx?nid=101


Fredreicsburg supports an area whose population is about ONE MILLION.

http://www.fra-yes.org/demographics-workforce.php



Those are very different situations from a small, ISOLATED town of 8,000. And that's just population numbers. You also have to compare average income. I suspect that little town of 8,000 has a slightly lower average income than Northern Virginia.


If this is true, it's not hard to figure out what's behind it. They want to eliminate dealers who aren't SERIOUS. They don't want to be a sideline. Every dealer on their books is a bit of overhead for them, so it does make sense for them to get rid of non-performers.

However, they need to take into account the demographics of each dealer. A "one size fits all" policy is a bad policy.
Click to expand...

My mistake. I should have said 10 mile raduis. I was referring to Sterling, Purcellville, Haymarket and Lovettsville. There is no 2 million people in all of Loudoun County, no where near it. Hell Fairfax and Arlington probably have more people than the rest of the whole state. Loudoun has about 300,000 all toll. I figure at least 75% of the registration cards I have people fill out are a Leesburg address. Course now I got some from Maryland, PA, NC, SC and even a few from ARK. Mainly though my core customers are located right here in the town of Leesburg.

Your right about the income, Loudoun is the highest in the nation. Wish I was one of those uppity bast-ards,LOLOL
 
THALL10326 said:
My mistake. I should have said 10 mile raduis. I was referring to Sterling, Purcellville, Haymarket and Lovettsville. There is no 2 million people in all of Loudoun County, no where near it. Hell Fairfax and Arlington probably have more people than the rest of the whole state. Loudoun has about 300,000 all toll. I figure at least 75% of the registration cards I have people fill out are a Leesburg address. Course now I got some from Maryland, PA, NC, SC and even a few from ARK. Mainly though my core customers are located right here in the town of Leesburg.
Click to expand...


Still, it's a lot bigger potential customer base than a town of 8,000, by several orders of magnitude.


It's not that I disagree with such a policy - on the contrary, it's good business sense. If you aren't doing anything with the name, move over! You ain't worth the overhead!

But they ought to take market demographics into account. That little guy in a small town can't be expected to move as much as you.


THALL10326 said:
Your right about the income, Loudoun is the highest in the nation. Wish I was one of those uppity bast-ards,LOLOL
Click to expand...


You and me both, buddy! :laugh:
 

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