DIRECT SELLING What's your view? by Service Dealer Editor, Steve Gibbs
With STIHL's announcement today that they will be experimenting with a direct sales web-store for some of their products, we'd like to hear what our readers think of the practice.
Today, STIHL Great Britain announced plans to launch a pilot direct online sales channel for its range of consumer cordless garden power tools in late February 2019.
Mark Rochford has left the company that bears his family name, which leaves the business with no family members remaining following its sale to AL-KO Gardentech last summer.
This week's WEB ONLY story is the sustainable farming robotics company, who futurist Ed Gillespie discussed at November's Service Dealer Conference, has announced that it has raised £1.2 million on Crowdcube equity crowdfunding.
A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit against 8 major lawnmower makers that alleges they conspired to make their products sound more powerful in order to justify charging customers more money in Canada.
For the second consecutive year Jensen woodchippers have offered their support to a charity Christmas tree collection run by Dorothy House Hospice Care which has raised over £26,000 this Christmas.
Amber Valley Borough Council, located in Derbyshire, has continued its long relationship with the manufacturer, with its latest purchase of two MP493 rotary mowers from local dealer Sharrocks.
An exciting opportunity exists in the Bishopton Depot for a Groundcare Service Adviser who can provide efficient admin and service support in a busy workshop office environment.
Thank you to the majority of dealers who have now re-subscribed for 2019 and indeed those new dealers who have joined the online success of Garden Trader. In fairness to them all, we will be taking down those listings who have not re-subscribed next Friday at midnight. So if you wish to re-subscribe or indeed register for the first time then now is the time to do so. In our launch phase, on average Garden Trader delivered 560 users who were actively looking to make a purchase (product or service) to individual dealer profile pages. The majority of these also clicked through to individual dealer web sites - so extremely warm leads. Not bad in a tough year. All subscribed dealers can easily check their listing's analytics just by logging in and see for themselves just how Garden Trader is helping their business. Garden Trader delivers amazing value for just £1.84 per week and we don't believe any other form of highly targeted digital promotion can rival this. Better still, it is promoting our highly skilled dealer network in the UK and helping fight discount based zero value online retailers and DIY stores.
In Huskvarna, Sweden on 17th January Husqvarna held a press event to launch the new generation of chainsaws in the professional 50cc segment: 545 Mark II and 550 XP® Mark II.
Whether it is fertilizers granules, grass seed or salt, Cobra has a range of four new walk-behind products that will take all the effort out of spreading and ensure accuracy of delivery and minimising expensive loss.
Central Spares have launched two of their biggest pre-season campaigns to date, on pre-season orders for Briggs & Stratton parts and the very popular Gardencare machinery range.