JD may effectively have a monopoly where the farmer lives. You're quite dependent on getting parts, help , knowledge, service, etc. locally with equipment like this.
disclosure: im a diesel mechanic by trade and Mahindra's are a real treat!!
I absolutely endorse Mahindra but if youre outside TN theyre kinda hard to come by. the tractors are less reliable than more modern western designs but faster and easier to repair by far. new head seals rocker arms valve guide seals and an oil change was 6 hours of labor and i actually started to enjoy it. bolts are over-built for what you need in some cases. the gyrovator has some of the beefiest engine mounts ive come across in a long time (looking at you Western Star)
im sure every one comes with a free "you dont want that" from the usual scumbags at the dealer but if you have an engine lift you can service your own Jivo very easily from tip to tail. the only reason our shop saw one was because the owner couldnt safely work on the engine (gyrovator series) as he was 71 years old.
less reliable than more modern western designs but faster and easier to repair by far
This sounds similar to the contrast between older and newer cars too; the older ones were designed to last with periodic scheduled maintenance, whereas newer ones are designed to have no maintenance for their "design life", after which it's difficult to repair.
kubota parts were faster for us to order since theyre used in construction all over the US and theyre a little more interchangeable, but you make that difference up with mahindra because you can fix more of it in the field to begin with.
I lived in a area where there were a lot of small and fairly poor farmers. I also had a machine shop. You can see where this is going: come harvest time tons of stuff that had been sitting for a year suddenly had to work 16 hours per day and predictably quite a bit of it would break in the field, usually simple stuff, bearings, shafts, welds. So once word got around that I was an ok welder with a machine shop every year a couple of farmers would find their way to my door with broken balers, older harvesters and s on. Fixing those would keep us in produce and meat for months. But I never ran into a Mahindra, though they were in use.
Tightening emissions rules are having an effect on this, at least here in the US. My small late-model Kubota has a diesel particulate filter and a fair bit of electronics to manage it. I've been told that if you don't follow the emissions instructions, the system will shut down and a Kubota official will have to come out to "unlock" your tractor.
Having owned both CUT without any emissions control(1981) and a Kubota w/ DPF, I'll take the DPF every day. It's quieter, cleaner and the emissions controls are even more straightforward than other modern diesels. If you have a full DPF, you just regen it for 10-15(usually while you're working) and you're good to go.
Aftermarket support. JD and Kubota are almost guaranteed to have attachments, enhancements, etc made specifically for them.
My Massey Ferguson has some offerings, but not nearly as many as those two. It’s similar for the other also-rans: New Holland, Kioti, Mahindra, RK, Bronson, and so on.
They should do what lab supply companies do who have similar constraints (hard to support dealerships for niche microscopes and such, expensive to ship and time consuming to set up sensitive microscopes and such): Salespeople. Have them make the rounds to the customers like these farmers. If there is interest among the farmers in a given area, you could then organize a demo day, email your clients about it, and interested parties would make time for it, especially if you are offering them a potential out from John Deere's yoke.
It's not only about demoing. As a farmer you have very few days to get your seeds out and very few days to get your harvest in. If you machine breaks down for too long, you might lose a lot of money. So you only get machines from somebody with mechanics and a full inventory of parts nearby. You cannot wait a day for something to arrive when you are on the field, you need to get it fixed NOW.
You assume the customer has the information needed to make that decision before the purchase. In reality, most people don't have a reliable way to compare the repairability of products/brands before making a purchase. Even if they did, if the majority of the market doesn't valie repair, that can easily ruin it for those who do. It especially punishes those who are behind economically and can't afford replacements or "authorized" repair options (assuming they are even available).
Farmers are equipment nerds. It comes with the territory. They aren't an ignorant consumer market, which is why we're seeing a big push for right to repair from that industry - hopefully they carry the torch for ignorant consumers in computers and cars and other markets.
From what I’ve seen, maintenance is an afterthought, and even then only until something breaks. That’s where the right to repair comes in. Had they done the preventative maintenance, it likely wouldn’t have broken, alas…
Monopolization Defined. The antitrust laws prohibit conduct by a single firm that unreasonably restrains competition by creating or maintaining monopoly power
Anti-trust laws were slowly defanged for decades until the main metric considered was 'will consumers see lower prices?' which is very easy to promise and temporarily deliver for the merging corporations. Then you just start rachetting up prices once you're a year or so out because unwinding a merger is tough.
Retail businesses have had low single digit profit margins for many decades. Is the claim here that Amazon will be able to destroy all other retail and increase the profit margins?
And is it not easier than ever for a competitor to start a retail business due to the internet? All you need is a website and UPS/FedEx/USPS. Seems like a bad business to get into if your goal is to earn a lot of profits by raising prices after cornering a market.
What are Amazon's profit margins? They are already deep into the "destroy all other retail" part, but it's not just about retail for them. They are vertically integrated, so it's also about distribution, fulfillment, and product search/discovery.
There really is not much left to juice in the business of getting detergent from Procter and Gamble to an end user.
Possibly, but P&G is big enough to have all its own in house production. One place this CAN really hit is any smaller market or company that's using contract manufacturing for smaller lots. In that area the information Amazon can get is actually better than any of the brands or sellers get because Amazon gets sales info across multiple brands /sellers.
That’s the same advantage any business enjoys when other businesses give them their data.
The internet has enabled the smaller company to have access to customers worldwide without the use of any large retailer. The situation has never been better for smaller retail companies, assuming they can differentiate and protect their IP.
Obviously they are going to get killed going up against Amazon, Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy, etc. But there is no avoiding economies of scale.
>Anti-trust laws were slowly defanged for decades until the main metric considered was 'will consumers see lower prices?'
That seems like the correct metric to use, no? The other definition didn't make much sense either.
>GOLDSTEIN: 1966, United States v. Von's Grocery - can two local grocery store chains merge in Los Angeles?
>MALONE: I don't know, merger?
>GOLDSTEIN: OK, but after the merger, they'd only have 7.5 percent of the local market.
>MALONE: Supreme Court was like, no. No, you can't do it. It would be too hard on mom-and-pop shops.
>GOLDSTEIN: OK, 1967, Utah Pie v. Continental Baking - can big national frozen pie companies sell really cheap pies in Utah and make business tough for a local pie company?
>MALONE: No way.
>GOLDSTEIN: OK, but what if the local pie company controls most of the local market and keeps making a profit through most of the price war?
>MALONE: Still no, nope.
>GOLDSTEIN: So in case after case, the court kept ruling for the little guy, kept ruling for team David, and expanding the definition of what was illegal, what was bad for competition.
>which is very easy to promise and temporarily deliver for the merging corporations. Then you just start rachetting up prices once you're a year or so out because unwinding a merger is tough.
But amazon didn't get here by a series of mergers?
What exactly is "monopolization defined"? This is the definition of a monopoly in India? Or where?
I know in the US a majority market share is the primary determinant of whether a company has a monopoly or not.
Does Amazon.in have a monopoly in India (we can use the definition of >50% market share for this question)? If they do, I am amazed at the progress in the last couple of years since I had read much about Amazon.in!
> I know in the US a majority market share is the primary determinant of whether a company has a monopoly or not.
I really feel this should be considered an outdated view. Software, technology, and automation has changed things, and companies can exert market and monopoly power much more easily with less market share than previously found in monopolistic practices.
If we read the Justice Department’s own documents, we find:
> The Supreme Court has defined market power as "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market,"(8) and monopoly power as "the power to control prices or exclude competition."(9) The Supreme Court has held that "[m]onopoly power under § 2 requires, of course, something greater than market power under § 1."(10) Precisely where market power becomes so great as to constitute what the law deems to be monopoly power is largely a matter of degree rather than one of kind. Clearly, however, monopoly power requires, at a minimum, a substantial degree of market power.(11)… antitrust law does not regard as illegal the mere possession of monopoly power where it is the product of superior skill, foresight, or industry.(14) Where monopoly power is acquired or maintained through anticompetitive conduct, however, antitrust law properly objects.
> Monopoly power is conventionally demonstrated by showing that both (1) the firm has (or in the case of attempted monopolization, has a dangerous probability of attaining) a high share of a relevant market and (2) there are entry barriers--perhaps ones created by the firm's conduct itself--that permit the firm to exercise substantial market power for an appreciable period.(16) Unless these conditions are met, defendant is unlikely to have either the incentive or ability to exclude competition.(17)
If we follow these definitions and discussions, it’s clear firms like Amazon and Apple have incredibly substantial market and monopoly power. To me, the fact that they may not have even majority market share in certain markets is inconsequential. If one keeps reading the linked Justice Department document, there’s discussions about percentages of market shares that the courts have typically gone off of. These are seemingly arbitrary and obviously rooted in businesses of a different type. Through technology and scale, firms like Amazon and Apple are among the richest and most powerful corporations ever, despite not necessarily having high percentages of market share in the relevant market, but they absolutely meet the definitions above. So these percentage of market share ideas are outdated and need revamped, in my opinion.
please point what level of the spanish state you believe its clear without corruption, i can point cases from bottom (trash collection) to top (chief of state)
You are exaggerating facts to justify your belief of living in a failed state. A failed state doesn't have the rule of law, education and health care that Spain enjoys. And I say this as a Venezuelan expat living in Spain since 2003.
