STIHL at Northern Tool?

[FergusonTO35]

Most of our Stihl and Echo dealers are franchised hardware stores: Ace, Doit Best, and so on. To their credit, most of them have respectable parts and service, and carry some proline products. Our Rural King is a Stihl dealer and seems to do it right, they have a very busy parts and service department and a big product selection. The minor players in OPE such as Dolmar and Maruyama have always been confined to OPE dealers and the odd country store that carries a single brand.

I think that where Mac, Homie, and Poulan screwed up was in focusing too much on quick profits by selling consumer products to big retailers at the expense of the proline and independent dealers. One can hope Stihl, Husky, and Echo would learn from their mistakes.