SALES TO FARMERS

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31523, 10 November 1967, Page 1

SALES TO FARMERS

Farmers had reacted to the economic situation by “shopping round” for implements and comparing makes and models much more closely, salesmen at the show said yesterday.

However, farmers were still looking at implements

and machinery and were still buying, although sales were much harder to make.

“Any salesman who takes an order at a show is a good salesman,” one said. “At the end of a show you may have two dozen names, and if you are lucky you may end up doing business with two or three of them.”

Salesmen agreed that a show was not the place to secure orders; farmers came to compare machines, and always had done. The displays were another form of advertising.

One representative of a firm selling ploughs and discs said that in spite of the economy this was his firm’s busiest year. It was noticeable, that orders for implements of all kinds were coming from mixed farms: sheep farmers were postponing existing orders rather than placing new ones.

Farmers could not afford to stop buying machinery, said another salesman. With more diversification, more plant was needed all the time.

Buyers were now going for the best deals rather than for the best machinery, or for the machinery with the best name, said another representative.

“We hear of some deals where the new machine goes on to the farm for almost nothing, and the farmer pays almost nothing for the first year. I suppose some might call it a sale. . .

The representative of a North Island company which sold many potato-farm machines said that large farms were becoming highly mechanised, enabling them to pro-

duce more efficiently and sell more cheaply. In the last year many smaller farms had taken up potato growing and as a result potatoes were likely to be plentiful. But because these smaller farms were not so highly mechanised and efficient, they would not be able to compete satisfactorily with the cheaper prices of larger producers, and many would “get their fingers badly burned,” he said. This could result in much smaller crops the next year.