Firstly, apologies for being a tad late with the news.

I must confess we did not know of the demise of F.R Jones before last Friday's Weekly Update had been sent. We hadn't heard anything and no one had brought it to our attention at that stage. So I am sorry if some of you were expecting to see coverage in last week's edition.

I first heard through an email I was sent by a dealer, who I don't know personally, about half an hour after we published. I'll reproduce some of the email here, but will keep the sender anonymous. They wrote to me:

"How come Service dealer are not reporting on the most hated Stihl dealer (Other than Stihl themselves) on the 1.6 million that FR Jones took Stihl for last week?
 
"Ive been itching to read all the comments on these absolute tossers of the industry finally getting their comeuppance."

The email continued by accusing us of being in the pockets of STIHL for not reporting.

Now I fully understand that feelings surrounding F.R Jones are always running high in the dealer community. It feels like an understatement to point out that they were contentious figures.

However, when I hear of any company going out of business, regardless of how much one may have serious and justifiable issues with those in charge, my first thoughts are always with the workers who have lost their jobs (especially at this time). Before we start pointing fingers and going 'ha-ha', that's around 40 families I believe, who have lost an income.

Also, the other blameless parties are the company's customers who will have lost out. Both F.R Jones' Facebook page and their Trustpilot entry, have many examples of members of the public complaining that they spent (in some cases quite considerable amounts of) money with them in the weeks, days, hours (?!) before they went bust - and clearly haven't seen anything in return. 

There are accounts of people as well, who had their own machinery in with F.R Jones for a service, who are obviously keen to see it returned as soon as possible. Not just homeowners either, professionals who will need that equipment to run businesses and fulfil contracts.

So call me a woolly liberal, but I do think that before we all start piling on and gloating that the company has ceased trading, we all should be mindful that people who have had zero say in the running of this company, but who worked for them or used them, will have been adversely affected by their demise.

Questions to be answered

That all said, there must now be significant question marks raised over how one of the highest profile outdoor powered machinery dealerships in the UK was controlled, which led to it failing so spectacularly, mid-season. Lessons must be learned for this not to happen to another business.

I have spoken to some leading dealers this week, who will know far more about the situation than I do, who highlighted some important issues that need to be considered.

Principally what I'm being told, is it's a question of margin. The business model seemed to be based on volume, not profit. Which as any business person will attest to, is simply unsustainable in the long term.

People I spoke to this week believed that when the company was flush with product, they were most likely selling record breaking numbers. But when it came down to profit in percentage terms, it seemed they operated in single figures. Which, as it was put to me, "is a suicidal game."

The wider industry problem that this 'pile it high, sell it cheap online' model creates of course, is a false sense of value of what this machinery is actually worth in the minds of customers.

I've heard accounts many times before, and it was repeated to me this week, of dealers experiencing customers coming into their stores with highly unrealistic cost expectations - based on what they had seen on F.R Jones' website. Being asked to price match on something which appeared to have rock-bottom (if any) margin, makes no business sense to any carefully managed dealership.

I've had opinions expressed to me that this event might need to be a wake-up call for manufacturers. Discussions may be required regarding how every dealer operates their business. Selling great volume, extremely cheaply, can't be doing either side any favours. It devalues what should be seen as a quality, high-end purchase.

Also I was told that manufacturers might need to rethink their policies on inventory. Rather than pushing product on to dealerships, stock levels should be led by dealers themselves. Stock being dumped on to dealers isn't helpful I was told. It needs to be the dealers who do the pulling. Having these pressures of shifting great mountains of stock, could have been another factor that led to the downfall.

Another short-term affect of the closure that was mentioned as a concern, was the potential for problems to be faced by suppliers and competitors through 'stock dumping' by the receiver. Unless the suppliers retention of title clauses are rock solid I was told, this flooding of the market with cheap product that needs moving, could prove to be an issue.

Overall I get the impression that all quality dealers understand and accept that online retail is a way of life. However, what seems clear is it does not help anyone if those sites are giveaway, bargain-bucket outlets. They should act to draw customers into a business where, once there, they receive premium customer service, for a premium product at a premium price. This surely is the model that benefits dealers and suppliers alike?

As a dealer said to me this week, "The specialist dealer will always win on profit and on customer retention - which is key to any business."