P&Q debuts the Dealer Issue

The July 2019 edition of Pit & Quarry is unlike any we’ve published in the magazine’s 103-year history.

Dedicated to equipment dealers, P&Q’s Dealer Issue dives into the world of distribution and explores how the responsibilities of those wedged between manufacturers and producers are rapidly changing.

From equipment sales and financing to parts delivery and service, dealers are going about their business in a vastly different way today than they did a generation ago. The demands on dealers to effectively deliver are undoubtedly more intense in 2019, as well, as pressures are felt from both sides of the supply chain to fulfill customer needs in a just-in-time fashion.

Downtime is a dagger for producers, who are often at the mercy of dealers to get their plant or a critical machine back up and running. Fortunately, most dealers are doing a good job holding up their end of the bargain.

Dealer performance

To capture a sense of how dealers are performing, P&Q surveyed producers this spring about a variety of topics. Most producers describe the dealers in their area as excellent (24 percent) or good (55 percent), with not a single producer characterizing a dealer’s deliverables as poor.

Producers recognize, too, how essential dealers are to their success. The majority of producers (70 percent) consider dealers to be extremely essential to their success, and a significant number (24 percent) at least recognize dealers as somewhat essential.

Although most producers (64 percent) have one dealer who serves them the majority of the time, keeping an operation up and running very much requires the involvement of multiple dealers. In fact, nearly half of all producers (48 percent) regularly work with four or more dealers.

A dealer may not be in touch with a producer every day, but there are cases where the day-to-day operation of a crushed stone, sand and gravel site depends on at least one daily dealer interaction. One in three producers says they’re in touch with a dealer at least twice a week, further illustrating how critical dealers are.