North American equipment dealer Anderson Equipment Company is assessing its customer financing as a result of the dealer’s launch of Mecalac products.
With the launch of the line, Anderson Equipment turned to other vendors and its own portfolio to determine how best to find financing for Mecalac products, John Boy, finance and sales administration manager at Anderson Equipment Company, told Equipment Finance News.
To start, Boy spoke with other vendors during the March 14-18 ConExpo event in Las Vegas about financing partners they have had success with who also finance Mecalac products. “We’ve looked at who we use already in our portfolio of lenders, and then who’s the captive group that supports the Mecalac product,” he said.
Anney, France-based Mecalac has manufacturing centers in France, Germany, Turkey and the United Kingdom, according to the company’s website. The manufacturer’s European presence and design made it a product that would fit in the markets Anderson Equipment serves, Boy said.
Mecalac, as well as Komatsu and Takeuchi, are international OEMs that have a North American presence and have their own financial services captives to support sales, according to their company websites. Mecalac products are only available at Anderson Equipment’s locations across New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Boy said. The dealer operates 18 total locations, but Mecalac products are not available at the locations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
Mecalac’s current captive, DLL, is one of the lender partners Anderson Equipment intends to use, Boy said. Anderson Equipment also contacted its traditional lending partners, such as First Citizens Bank, Huntington Bank and First National Bank, to ensure that there would remain ways to facilitate deals for customers of varying credit quality.
“You need to think of your A, B, C and D credit partners that you need to work with so that we can get anyone of any credit strength that has an interest in purchasing this equipment approval,” he said. “We’ve reached out to our typical A and B partners, but also asked, ‘Who do we go to on the C partners and D lender partners on these pieces of equipment since they are a little more specialized and a little more expensive.’”
Managing product launches
Still, the company is targeting Pittsburgh, Charleston, W.Va., and Buffalo, N.Y., as top markets where the compact equipment will meet customer needs.
“Pittsburgh has a lot of really tight, narrow street corners, so it makes sense for that product,” Boy said. “Charleston, West Virginia has a lot of older neighborhoods that are tighter, and even in Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse, there are some areas that are a lot tighter.”
By targeting specific areas for a new product launch, Anderson Equipment can better manage and prepare for any issues at the dealership, Boy said.
“We’re specifically going to target the areas where we think it’s going to get the highest use and the machines are going to really be put through the paces and be highly utilized equipment in those areas [so] we can make sure that we know how the durability stands up and the serviceability stands up,” Boy said.
Bringing a new product line requires vendors to analyze how it will fit with their current products and clients, Boy said. “We looked at this from multiple perspectives. Not only do we need to sell this product, but we also need to supply and service it on the parts side and the maintenance side, so there’s a lot of things that we took into account as far as supply chain goes.
“A lot of this product comes out of France, and it’s a very European design,” he said. “If you look at a lot of the tight spaces they have to deal with in Europe, and we’re not too far off ourselves from that, so it made sense from a design standpoint to bring this product to the United States.”
