Once again this week, our news contains several stories about you, our valued dealer readers, taking on new franchises.
We report on Balmers adding the Ransomes franchise now their relationship with Deere has come to an end (at their own behest); Pecks becoming a Redexim dealer; and Robert Cole Agricultural Engineers taking on Vogelsang. Three separate announcements, involving three different businesses, yet I think that it’s possible to argue that they all have something in common.
Each dealership has made a deliberate decision about the brands it wants to represent.
Sometimes a new franchise fills a gap in a product range. Sometimes it reflects changing customer demand. Sometimes it follows the difficult decision to walk away from a supplier that no longer fits your business. And of course sometimes it's the result of a manufacturer restructuring its network.
Whatever the reason, we know through our conversations with dealers that major business decisions such as these are never taken lightly.
Every new franchise brings opportunity, but it also involves effort and investment. Staff need training, parts must be stocked, workshops require new knowledge, sales teams need confidence in the products and the dealership's reputation becomes linked with another manufacturer's fortunes. Equally, dropping a franchise can mean saying goodbye to loyal customers, familiar products and relationships that may have existed for decades.
Ultimately though, we know that dealerships make these decisions with one thing firmly in mind - what is right for their customers and what is right for the long-term health of their own company.
Last year when we ran our survey asking our dealer readers what influences those decisions, the responses we received painted a fascinating picture.
Unsurprisingly, manufacturer support featured time and again. Dealers told us that technical backup, parts availability and warranty payments could make or break a relationship, regardless of how good the machinery itself might be. One respondent summed it up, explaining that they had dropped more than half a dozen quality brands because stock shortages, poor parts availability and weak technical support made it impossible to look after customers properly.
Margins, of course, remain vital. Several dealers admitted that profitability is a significant factor when deciding whether to take on a new franchise, while others highlighted concerns over being expected to stock products they felt were already behind the market or simply didn't suit their customer base.
There was also a recurring theme around trust. Some respondents expressed concern about manufacturers expanding dealer networks too aggressively, reducing territories, marketing directly to end users or failing to show loyalty to established dealers. Others pointed to limited warranty payments, poor communication and inconsistent support as reasons for looking elsewhere.
Perhaps most interestingly, several dealers recognised that customer demand itself is changing. One respondent noted that their dealership had moved away from lower-end petrol machinery because battery products had become the dominant choice for many customers, while still retaining premium petrol equipment where there remained a genuine market.
All of which brings us to our brief survey that we are running today. We'd like to find out what's happening in your dealership regarding the shuffling of the pack?
How many franchises do you currently hold? Have you added or dropped any recently? What persuades you to take on a new supplier, and what ultimately convinces you it's time to move on from an existing one?
Whether your decisions are driven by margin, support, product quality, customer demand, territory, warranty, availability or something else entirely, we'd like to hear from you.
As always, we'll share the results in a upcoming edition of Service Dealer magazine. And as with all the surveys we run, it isn’t just hard data we’re after. We want to hear your voices. If you’ve got something you’d like to say on the subject, there is space for you to do so – anonymously.
So please do let us know what’s happening in your showroom - and we thank you in advance for your help.
TAKE THE SURVEY
