Once again the factory is telling us that the forklifts we ordered last December are on back order. Do not expect them in May.. June is a we’ll see!
Our inventory is usually between 195 and 160 lifts. We are down to 45! Only 6 new ones!
Other forklift salesmen are giving me similar tails of woe.. I drove by most of my competitors today and most only had a few forklifts in their yard..
I spoke with a steel salesman yesterday and he said that his customer (Bobcat) ordered 5000 tons of steel and he could only deliver 1000 tons.. Expect a similar problem with skid steers!
If you have work that requires a forklift this summer I suggest that you don’t wait to set up the rental/ purchase! Same with just about any equipment!
Replies
Frenchy,
So is steel the issue? Is it economic or simply demand out stripping supply? Interesting problem, never thought someone in sales having to worry about not having something to sell! DanT
Not to hijack this one,but the price of steel is getting outfriggingrageous! Check the price of rebar, drywallbead, screws,nails. The beams we buy w12x 26 we were paying about .36 lb last Oct. now .52lb & that price is good till June 1st. I think we will soon be seeing inflation real soon!
The supply of steel is apparently the problem.. I know for a fact that scrap metal is at an all time high, farmers and etc. are junking cars at record rates. Steel is steadily climbing in price..
I suspect part of the trouble is it is no longer attractive to sell us imported steel..(weak as the dollar has become)
I've sold from an empty wagon before, it isn't fun. Customers expect a normal discount when you are down to your last piece of equipment and you'll have bills to pay next month as well!
a few decades ago I was selling Honda cars, they were marked up so much that I would make more money selling them at $3,000 than I could make selling a $30,000 motorhome!
the customers would line up, I'd take their down payment (50%) and tell them that as soon as the load came in I'd call them with what color they got.
I hated it! I felt like a store clerk and was embaressed that I'd make so much money on them..
Frenchy,
I can understand the feeling of a store clerk, never am I embarrassed to make to much money though. DanT
Since I can never make enough to retire on from one customer I need to treat all my customers as long term relationships.. I ensure that they profit from any transaction with me and that creates loyalty..
Much of my income is derived from referals and prior customers. It's not uncommon for a customer to buy one forklift from me and once he recognizes the profit in them buy another and another.
Sure if I charged list price on a new forklift I could get over $130,000 dollars for a 56 foot one.. but that is about $30,000 more than what they normally sell for. (the more typical 42 foot one sells for around $75,000)
While it would nice to pocket the commision on a $30,000 dollar profit I doubt I could ever, ever sell him another. That plus all of you builders have this nasty habit of comparing prices.. What kind of reputation do you think I'd have once one contractor found out he'd beenover charged $30,000?
In the end it would cost me far more than I could ever profit from!
This is a business where you have to think long term.. if you do you'll make a nice living. if you don't you'll join the hundreds of failed salesmen...
"...know for a fact that scrap metal is at an all time high, farmers and etc. are junking cars at record rates."
That's fer sure. Two years ago you couldn't hardly GIVE scrap iron away. I had an old car that needed hauled off, and it took 3 years to get it done. They didn't even pay anything for it, but were willing to pick it up for free.
I've been trying to convince Dad to clean up some stuff and haul it off now that scrap prices are high.
Funny how nothing is ever 100% good or bad. I hate to see the high steel prices cause problems. But seeing all the old equipment getting cleaned up is a big plus. And if we're selling the scrap to China at least it will help the trade deficit.Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change those I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill.
Sounds like Junkhound's retirement fund filling up.
Joe H
We're still paying about $60 to a junkyard to take a scrap car -- and it has to be delivered to the yard!
Of course, the result is that people just take off the plates and dump them and it then becomes the Local Council's problem.
IanDG
Frenchy: thanks for the heads up! Seems logical that forklifts would be one of the first products affected due to the incredible weight of steel in the suckers.
We build plant structures out of hollow structural steel (box tubing) and have seen its price double in the space of a year. Our steel supplier is saying that the local steel mills are paying $0.12 to $0.15 Canadian for good quality scrap at their gate- that's more than double what they usually pay. I expect to see a heck of a lot of clean-up going on all around North America as everybody hauls away all the old machinery that they no longer need because everything's being made in China these days!
Which gets me to the purported cause of the steel shortage- enormous demand in China. With everything being made in China, sold to North America and scrapped here, the export business in scrap has suddenly become rather lucrative...
Stainless prices have also gone nuts-o. In that case, both the iron AND the nickel have increased dramatically in price in a space of a year or so.
The biggest problem is the volatility: nobody is quoting any steel-intensive products to us with a price fixed for thirty days any more- everybody is quoting 1 week fixed, or less! And the mills are doing the same to the distributors.
It's not all good news, China is big in steel production since they don't worry about air polution.. since the rotation of the earth cause the winds to come from china and towards the United States we'll eventually get some rather dirty air in our country because of this.. that or the acid rain (which is a by-product of steel production) will cause a severe reduction in the fish life in the ocean.. (less tuna/swordfish etc.)
At least steel produced in the United States doesn't polute to the same level as the Chineese do..
Frenchy: I never implied that ANY of this was good news! But the trend toward China and India making everything is established already. Be expecting that bad air, and worse...But it's very interesting how cheap manufactured goods push up the price of what used to be cheap raw materials. Just wait until we North Americans can't afford to pay for these cheap imported manufactured goods because our manufacturing-dependent economies have collapsed!
It's part of the normal cycle of things.. during the 30's and 40's America became the worlds supplier of stuff, as we all enjoyed a better standard of living our labor costs increased untill we couldn't compete..
As we shipped the things overseas that we didn't want, we are following the example set for us by England.. (read Kennedy's book why England slept) leading to the inevitable downfall of American industry. We can't all be store clerks!
I don't see China or India as the long term winner in this.. they are too short of raw materials.. Too over populated. Labor isn't the only issue! The big winner in the future? Russia!
She has material that she hasn't evan explored as yet.. minerals and forests that are totally untapped. The Russian population can easily be educated and trained at methods of extracting those resources and she will learn to capitolize on her wealth..
The cost of scrap steel skyrocketing sucks 'cause the only guy to "stiff" me in the last 10 years deals in scrap steel!!