There are plenty of ways to earn a living. Some folks buy properties and rent them out to people. Others become car dealers and spend their days buying and selling cars. But one often overlooked way to earn a living is to buy and sell agriculture equipment.
The food that we eat gets produced by farmers that use all kinds of weird and wonderful machinery to harvest crops. Without such modern equipment, we wouldn’t see the same volumes of food for sale at our local grocery stores.
In some ways, buying and selling farm equipment isn’t too dissimilar to buying and selling cars. As long as you know what you’re doing, you can make a healthy profit from such an enterprise.
I was fortunate enough to spend the day with a friend of mine that shared his secrets on buying and selling agriculture equipment. He was happy for me to publish what he said as long as I kept his name anonymous for obvious reasons!
Are you interested in setting up such a business? Maybe you’re just curious about how such equipment gets bought and sold? Whatever the case, keep reading to learn the secret confessions from a farm equipment trader!
You need to offer a decent warranty
If you deal in agriculture equipment, it’s important that you give your customers a decent warranty – and stick by it. By law, you need to give your customers some kind of warranty for used agriculture equipment.
Quite often your customers will spend tens of thousands of dollars on equipment for their farms. They need to know that what they buy from you will work for a reasonable amount of time. And they also need to know that they can approach you if they have any questions or come across any problems.
Unscrupulous traders will sell farm equipment and then wash their hands of any responsibility. If you want your customers to give you repeat business, show them that you are a genuine seller.
Get prepared to repair anything you buy
Farmers won’t bother fixing anything on their equipment that isn’t essential. That means you’re likely to come across machinery with broken windows and dented bodywork!
If you want to make a good profit on any machinery that you buy, you will need to spend some time and money fixing any problems first. The best way to maximize your profit is to carry out the repair work yourself.
As you are likely to deal with the same kinds of equipment all the time, you will soon learn how to fix many common issues. If you want to set up a business as an agriculture equipment trader, you should set up accounts with parts suppliers.
And don’t be afraid to buy used spare parts for the machinery you buy. As long as there is no obvious safety reason you should buy new, getting used parts will save you a lot of cash. Doing so will also help you to sell your equipment faster.
No trader wants to hang on to stock for long periods. That’s why you need to get any repairs carried out as soon as you can.
Price your equipment to sell
The mistake that some traders make is to put equipment up for sale because that’s what some publication told them to do! You need to price your equipment to sell.
The challenge is to set a price where you can make a good profit. You also have to take into account the time and money you’ve spent getting the equipment in good working order. Research is the key here and is an essential part of buying and selling agriculture equipment.
It can sometimes be hard to determine the value of older machinery and equipment. But for newer models, you can always get a ballpark figure by contacting the manufacturer’s dealer in your area.
They can give you a book value and tell you the number of hours of service your specific model can offer.
Another way to work out the value is to look at sites like http://farm.autotrader.co.uk. If you buy and sell a popular model (which you should be doing anyway!), you will have no trouble working out a fair price for what you’ve got.
There is no single source for prices based on age and condition like there are with cars. That’s because farm equipment has to put up with a lot of wear and tear during their lifetime.
Don’t offer big prices to sellers
When you go to look at agriculture equipment for sale by farmers, the key thing is to offer them a low price for what they’ve got. Farmers know that the equipment they’ve used has had a hard life.
They also know that they need to sell their equipment sooner rather than later. Offer farmers a fair price for their machinery. Just ensure you have a rough idea of what needs to get repaired, so that you can resell the equipment later on for a good profit.
Don’t buy trash
There is always a temptation to buy used equipment from farmers that looks like it’s about to fall apart. That’s because some traders feel they won’t have a problem fixing them up. The trouble is; if some machinery looks like it’s only worth scrap value, it usually is!
Go with your gut feeling. If you feel there is too much work involved in making something usable again, don’t buy it and just walk away from the deal. You are under no obligation to buy everything you see.
If something doesn’t look or feel right to you, trust your instincts or you could end up making a big and expensive mistake!
Stick with known brands
Farmers want to buy equipment that they know will offer years of reliable service. To do so, they will only stick with known brands like Massey Ferguson. Make sure that you only buy such brands yourself – they will be easier to sell on than unknown ones.
Thanks for reading; see you soon!