Page 10 - OPE July-Aug 2021

INDUSTRY
Fieldays 2021
Local success story Hansa Chippers was one of our first stops and we caught up briefly with MD, Martin Vogel.
After the event, candidly summing up Hansa’s last few months, Martin says much time and focus has been spent “getting out of the manufacturing hole that we’ve been in and reducing our backorders.”
Hansa isn’t alone in this, by any means, it’s simply part of the reality of the last year’s local and global circumstances, but it was pleasing to hear Martin Vogel sharing that the company was “making good headway” and moving ahead.
Indeed, the day after we spoke, Hansa was set to make a start on additional space at its Hamilton base to add to its manufacturing capacity, another 2,000m2 in fact.
Hansa is also, like other local manufacturers, taking on more staff, which is another challenge in today’s employment climate, says the MD, but well worthwhile.
“Some really good people that have joined us in recent months,” says Martin Vogel, summing up with “It’s all about investing for the future.”
STIHL’s user experience
Marketing Manager Stace Hall and the
STIHL team saw “good numbers through the tent the whole week”.
Some of this will have been about the brand, products, and experiences on offer but, admits Stace, being fully covered, every time the rain started the STIHL tent “filled up to standing room only”.
STIHL did things a little differently
this year. Describing its marquee as “half STIHLshop and half STIHL”, 2021 was the first time STIHL had gone full retail using the STIHLshop online retail system.
“We put all our transactions through our e-commerce site, which we launched last January before Covid,” says Stace Hall.
“We wanted a way of introducing customers to how easy it is to order through the e-commerce site.
“And secondly, as a result, we were also able to dispatch home delivery orders the same day.
“So that meant the customers buying at Fieldays were getting their goods as quickly as humanly possible.”
With STIHL choosing to shift its must-watch Timbersports showcase of recent years to the Rural Games, rather than inviting people to come and watch experts on the end of tools, STIHL put the
customers on the end of the tools.
So, the STIHL site was full of experience centres for different tools where customers
could come and have a go at various competitions on the end of a chainsaw (overseen by Jason Wynyard no less!), a line trimmer, a blower, etc.
Stace Hall admits that he was apprehensive that visitors would actually have a go, but “they absolutely did and the tent it was packed the whole week.”
Poles apart at Husqvarna
Over at Husqvarna’s stand, visitors were captivated by the brand’s Automowers doing their thing, but the word was that Husky’s eagerly anticipated new 90cc professional chainsaw, the 592 XP (see Clippings on page 02 for the details) was also subject to rising enquiries.
With a change of site this year, Marketing Manager, Margot Dell, says of Husqvarna’s new possy: “Our move to a corner site certainly gave us much more engagement with customers and good positive vibes,” she says, adding: “it was a great turn out – particularly Friday – but the weather turned on Saturday which generally is a big day for most.”
On top of Automowers, Husky’s stand featured some impressive pole climbing skills and demos of the safe way to use
a chainsaw, all of which made for “great crowd interaction”.
Margot however adds that it was “disappointing to see so many empty locations”, the most likely contributing factors being lack of stock, along with “less investment in supplier stands, which is understandable after last year’s cancelled show and with Covid still with us.”
Playing the generation game
Such was his commitment to addressing existing and potential customers at Fieldays, that we didn’t manage to get a word with BE Pressure’s super-busy John Lahman during our visit.
A Fieldays veteran, John has now been doing Fieldays off and on for more than 20 years and says this was the best year he’s experienced for turnover.
Catching up with John after the event, he confirms: “There was noticeable extra spending this year, but I think a lot of people also attended the event to do research.
“It was well attended, and enquiries were
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