Page 10 - OPE March 2020

MARKETPLACE
Chainsaws & Accessories
chain and chain oil, or relevant safety gear”. Over at Husqvarna, Steve Middleton,
Sales & Marketing Manager, has just returned from the brand’s annual sales conference in the South Island where plenty of new products were detailed for 2020-2021, including a range of new cordless products to be rolled out across all hand-held outdoor power ranges this year.
Says Steve: “Last year started with conditions that were very favourable with grass growth across the country and that was quite different to what we face now. The bottom half of the South Island is very green and lush and having a good run, so there are pockets of the country that aren’t too bad.
“But 40-odd days without rain up north is making it hard for retailers. Our dealers are still positive, it’s not doom and gloom out there, but it is challenging.”
Steelfort GM, Gavin Lowndes, also reports 2019 as being good numbers-
wise but qualifies that by adding “it was a reasonably tough year trying to get margin”.
“We feel very positive about 2020 although we could do with some rain! Petrol lawnmower sales, for example, have slowed up since mid-January, purely due to the dry conditions.
“But if we get rain, we expect March will be a big month. Regions that are doing well include the deep south and the big guys in Christchurch and Auckland are also going very, very well.”
Pronounced shift in
consumer habits
Turning specifically to chainsaws, although the move towards cordless is unrelenting, Steelfort’s Gavin Lowndes says there’s still big business to be had at the price-sensitive entry level that’s currently dominated by budget petrol models,.
“We’ve seen year-on-year growth right across the market but noticeably more in lithium chainsaws. We’re doing a lot more lithium products under our LawnMaster brand, and seeing a move towards them. We’re well down the track with lithium and happy with the quality and performance of it.”
Battery powered is around 10% of overall sales now, he reports, although exact figures for the overall category are hard to come by.
What is clear is that cordless is “a growing market”.
But demand for that entry-level offering remains strong: “We’re doing the entry-to- medium price bracket petrol chainsaws in big volumes,” says Gavin.
“The big-volume petrol chainsaws are price-sensitive products but our feedback is they perform perfectly adequately for domestic users.”
Back at Husqvarna, Steve Middleton describes the chainsaw market as still “pretty steady”, and says sales growth is split across a broad mix of battery and petrol.
However, he adds: “We’re definitely seeing a shift in consumer buying habits. At our entry level, you’ve got a lot of discerning consumers in the marketplace searching for a quality product nowadays, generally for light pruning and firewood applications.”
And these end users are looking for a premium brand even at an entry level, he says “because they know they can get the quality support and genuine spare parts.”
Chief attractions, he says, are a five-year warranty, sound advice around safety, and the back-up of the dealer.
“It’s quite a different experience from where they’ve ordered online or picked it up in a box from a mass merchant store.”
STIHL’s Jochen Speer says he sees the battery category continuing to grow at a fast pace in 2020, and that this trend is simply now “business as usual”.
“Battery will take over in categories where this power source is a better option,” he says, adding that this is not yet the case in all product categories such as large brushcutters, professional chainsaws and concrete cutters.
Jochen continues: “Here you will see continued development from STIHL in the petrol category and a product pipeline that introduces new technologies, such as electronic fuel injection based on petrol engines.”
Overall, Jochen believes cordless buyers are less sensitive to price than buyers in the petrol category. “If we can show a clear value for the product, then the price barrier some customers experience can be overcome as well. The product simply has to be good enough to demand the higher pricetag.”
By way of example, last October STIHL introduced a new professional petrol chainsaw, the MS500i, with electronic fuel injection, which is at the upper end in terms of power output, weight and pricing.
While Jochen Speer shares that feedback sofarhasbeen“verypositive”,it’sstillearly days for this exciting product because not only is the Christmas period traditionally quiet in forestry but the Coronavirus has also been impacting logging.
“We’re still experiencing growth in the professional range but it has slowed,” shares Jochen, adding that he’s seeing a higher level of growth in STIHL’s cordless range,
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Risk an overriding factor
with third party replacement parts?
CHAINSAWS LEAD A tough life
but a good quality model will serve its owner well, many times beyond the useful life of the original chains and bars. What about replacement parts?
Husky’s Steve Middleton highlights
key chainsaw replacement parts as being fuel filters, air filters, chain and bar, and sprockets, the high-wear items, with quality two-stroke oil equally essential to longevity.
He says a lot of the people purchasing a brand like Husqvarna do so because they know they’ve got access to genuine, quality spares from the servicing dealer.
“We’ve done quite a bit of analysis on our own Husqvarna spare parts and the people who do their homework nowadays are finding that the price gap is small
between genuine and pirate parts.” Over at STIHL, Jochen Speer is in
no doubt that both domestic users
and professionals are buying quality replacement parts and oils and that genuine STIHL replacement parts are the only option for the guaranteed performance and safety of his company’s products.
“For our industry, it is paramount to communicate the use of original spare parts for servicing as more and more aftermarket suppliers without sufficient product quality safeguards are offering their sometimes dubious wares,” he says firmly.
“Our stores only offer exclusive, original STIHL spare parts and we keep encouraging that. You won’t find a STIHL
retailer in NZ that offers aftermarket spare parts, and we are very strict in that respect. That’s the only way that we can guarantee the quality.”
The STIHL MD says he’s concerned that many consumers are unaware that cheap aftermarket parts may come with risks attached: “I wish that the retailers that use those parts would be fully open with their customers.
“With the aftermarket supply of chain break product for a chainsaw, if there’s a failure, it can actually cost lives.
“And it’s the same with cheaper chains or handles – there is significant risk attached and everyone in our industry should be educating their customers about that.”