Service Dealer held another of our regular video conference calls on Wednesday, this time once again with senior representatives of manufacturers, business service providers and trade associations.

The impression which I was left with this week, which it must be stressed comes with some clear caveats, was there's perhaps a sense a mild optimism in the air.

I realise 'mild optimism' has never had folks hanging out the bunting - but it's something at least! A light at the end of the tunnel perhaps?

What it does show is that the industry is coping and is looking ahead to when we move back towards a normality - or rather to what many are now referring to as the 'new normal'. 

You can see from reports in the Weekly Update today and last week, that manufacturing is being ramped up once again across Europe - albeit with restrictions in place obviously. This should hopefully get the supply chain moving in the right direction (not that reports on that front have been that bad so far). Somewhere down the line this disruption will no doubt be felt. Whether that's later this year or into next, we shall see.

It was also pleasing to hear this week the efforts which our trade associations are making behind the scenes. You can read here about the dialogue with government which the AEA and BAGMA are having, in order to make the case for commercial groundscare.

One hopes the powers that be pay attention to this well timed letter from the associations, because the caveat I mentioned amongst the mild optimism, very much applies to the commercial groundcare machinery sector. We heard again this week that this is the area of the land based engineering industry which is most feeling the pinch.

The talk was that if golf courses in particular, can find a safe way to gradually start up operations over the coming weeks - with presumably closed clubhouses, smaller playing groups, longer gaps between tee-times - then this would be a massive boost for the commercial machinery dealers and the manufacturers who supply them.

To illustrate just how tough it is for the commercial sector currently, one manufacturer told us that sales of their professional machinery are down approximately 40% on where they were this time last year - and that's with the relatively good growing conditions that 2020 has seen. Operators of commercial kit are only spending the bare minimum required. Plans for increasing commercial fleets have gone out of the window for the time being for many.

Compare this with the domestic machinery side and it appears to be quite a different picture. We heard from a particular company this week, who said that despite around 57% of their dealers being closed at the moment, sales of their consumer products in April were only 5% down on where they were during the same month in 2019.

That struck me as really quite remarkable. I guess what it illustrates is that a) there's no real significant drop off in consumer demand for these products. And b) there are dealers out there who chose to stay open who are finding success. Plus you can now add to this list an increasing number of dealers who are now finding methods which suit them, that are allowing them to reopen.

Feedback from these retailers to their suppliers, we were told, has been fairly upbeat under the circumstances. Described as proactive and entrepreneurial, more dealers have been settling on safe practices that are within the guidelines and appropriate for their businesses. 

Agricultural machinery dealers are also incredibly busy. It was described as a 'perfect storm' for these guys currently. Following on from a very wet winter it seems like everything has come at once in the farming sector - and as a knock-on for those that service the industry. Some dealers are apparently considering calling back staff whom they had previously furloughed to help them cope with the current pressures.

It's clearly still a mixed picture for the dealer network as a whole, but via these calls with both the suppliers and the dealers, we're getting a sense of how the industry is not only only coping, but progressing.

As one supplier put it on Wednesday, dealers of all specalisms will eventually have to find ways of trading through this ongoing situation.

Even when lockdown restrictions begin to be eased, it's becoming ever more apparent that there will not be an immediate return to how things were.