What’s STIHL’s deal?

[Shanesaw80]

So I’ve been dealing with the same saw dealer for the last 20+ years, a small locally owned store. They sell both Husqvarna and Stihl and are extremely well know in western Canada as having the best prices around. They have always treated me extremely well and always gave me great discounts on everything. They would also ship me whatever I needed, anywhere I needed it to go. I have purchased a number arctic saws over the past few years and shipped them south to a few members of this forum.

So I’ve been away for almost 3 months working halfway across the country and finally got home last week. I call the dealer this morning to start a parts list of things I need to restock and was thinking of grabbing another chainsaw or two as well. I get informed that they can no longer give me deals on Stihl saws and can no longer ship them, if I want to buy one I have to drive the 2.5hrs and come to the store.

Stihl laid down the hammer on these guys and it’s going to greatly diminish their sales. They had amazing prices and worked on quantity of saws sold. With the store being in a small town in the middle of nowhere and now not allowed to ship them it’s going to hurt them real bad. They’ll still get my business and I’ll still refer them to anyone looking for equipment as they have always treated me great but I fear this may have a real negative impact on the store. Thanks Stihl for *f-wording up a good thing.

 

[Stump Shot]

Same thing from my Stihl guy. It's not Stihl laying down the law, rather the dealer reacting to the "new normal", Stihl's manufacturing is down.
Basically they are trying to keep what stock they can on the shelf, hence the no deals until saws come available again regular like. If you have an immediate need your guy may be able to do better for you right now with Husqvarna as from what I can gather, seem to be handling the pandemic better. Might be a 572 in the hands is better than no 462's out in the bush? You can still find the odd Stihl on the shelf at some of the smaller dealers like hardware stores and such, just have to search them out. I still have a Stihl saw on order from last summer.
Sucks, hopefully they will get back to "normal normal" soon.

 

[RoyM]

Having worked for Stihl dealers over the years I am surprised these people got away with predatory practices for so long. I don't blame Stihl, they want to maintain high standards and a level playing field for their dealers. It wasn't all sweetness and light though. They would sell cut off direct to rental yards for their fleets who then lowballed them out the back door to favoured customers at our cost. We complained to the rep who said he could do nothing so we stopped stocking them. He threatened to cancel our dealership over it so I brought in one of a discontinued model.

 

[MarcS]

Bragging about dealership standards and then letting box stores and John Deere dealerships handle their full line. What a bunch of hypocrites.