Marshalling his troops - Pitchcare

Manufacturers -
what have they
ever done for us?
On the following
pages we take a
look at some
aspects of the
work of suppliers
to the turfcare
industry
118
The true cost of
Demos...
It’s quite the done thing, isn’t it? You
have an idea that a piece of kit
might do a job for you, but you’re
not sure, so you ask for a
demonstration. The dealer, or supplier,
is always ready to oblige and there’s no
onus on you to buy. That’s the nature
of the game.
But, have you any idea what that
demonstration has cost? In the old
days, when petrol was under £1 a
gallon, and you could put a trailer on
the back of any vehicle, it was probably
quite a reasonable cost and well within
a company’s’ budget. But, nowadays,
it’s another ball game - that cost could
be costing you a decent discount off
the manufacturer’s list price.
Tony Evans, of PR Company Pan
Publicity, canvassed opinion from three
well known names in the industry to
find out their perspective on the issue.
Tim Merrell, Managing Director of
Newmarket based The Grass Group,
says the true cost of a demo is
something they’ve really started
driving through to dealers. For a while
now, they’ve been offering different
levels of discount according to whether
or not they have to do a
demonstration. He believes the
industry has already started making
some ‘unseen’ changes in regard to
demonstrations.
“The reason I say unseen,” he
explains, “is because the changes are
unseen to the end user. In the past, the
cost of a demonstration was already
factored into the final price of a
machine but, by not having one, the
dealer can either get a better profit
margin, or offer the end user a better
price, simply by cutting out our a
demonstration.”
However, Tim accepts that there are
just times when a demonstration is
absolutely necessary. But, he does
think that end users need to be
educated on the real cost of a demo
which, he says, works out on average at
about £500 a day when you take into
account labour, expenses and travel.