As long as the right products are selected, every year is the peak season
Zhang Guojun, 40 years old this year, established Liaozhong County Yifa Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. in 2010. It is reported that Zhang Guojun has been engaged in agricultural machinery sales as early as 2010, but at that time he mainly focused on small agricultural machinery such as single-cylinder machines. With the gradual increase in subsidies for agricultural machinery, the domestic agricultural machinery market has developed rapidly, and agricultural machinery products have gradually developed from small to medium and large. Zhang Guojun saw this situation, and in 2010, he began to enter into the market of medium and large agricultural machinery.
However, the good times did not last long. Since the growth rate of the agricultural machinery industry declined significantly in 2016, the sales of traditional agricultural machinery products such as tractors and harvesters represented by Yifa Agricultural Machinery have also declined. In the face of the continuous decline in the agricultural machinery market, Zhang Guojun did not give up, but made up for the impact of the decline in the traditional agricultural machinery market by expanding new product categories. "Faced with a declining market at that time, many dealers would only complain. I felt that complaining was useless, so I began to study some emerging agricultural machinery products. Under the general trend of declining traditional agricultural machinery products, relying on our individual strength is not enough. Possibly blocking, but we can make up for the loss by selling some emerging products in emerging markets.”
Through Zhang Guojun's exploration of the emerging market of agricultural machinery, the annual sales of Yifa Agricultural Machinery have been increasing even under the trend of the overall sharp decline in the domestic agricultural machinery market. This is thanks to the self-propelled peanut picking harvester and straw feed picking baler that Zhang Guojun has represented in the market in the past two years, which has brought very considerable sales to Yifa Agricultural Machinery.
Take the self-propelled peanut picking harvester as an example. As early as 2017, when the peanut picking harvester market started, Zhang Guojun had already set his sights on this emerging agricultural machinery market. However, because there were very few brands of peanut picking harvester at that time, and they were indeed emerging products, in order to seize the opportunity, Zhang Guojun acted as an agent for one of the brands without much consideration.
After acting as an agent for peanut picking harvesters in 2017, Zhang Guojun began to promote it on a large scale, but the final sales were not satisfactory. In 2017 and 2018, the peanut harvester business of Yifa Agricultural Machinery has not changed much. Later, Zhang Guojun's investigation found that there is a better peanut harvester product on the market, and most users choose to buy another peanut picking harvester instead of the one he represented.
In 2019, Zhang Guojun conducted a full investigation on the brand of peanut picking harvester again, and replaced the agent product with the Zhonglian Harvest 4HZJ-2500 self-propelled peanut picking harvester under Zhengzhou Zhonglian. "At that time, I found through sufficient research that the peanut harvester products of Zhonglian Harvest have a higher market share, and users generally reported that their products are not only of very good quality, but also of good harvesting efficiency and harvesting effect. The most important thing is the service. In place, problems can be solved immediately, and the user reputation is very good, so I decided to switch to their products."
After the 2019 sales season, Yifa Agricultural Machinery sold only 7 units of Zhonglian Harvest 4HZJ-2500 peanut picking harvesters. The reason why Yifa Agricultural Machinery only sold 7 peanut harvesterswas because of Zhang Guojun's cautious personality. At first, he didn't have so much trust in Zhonglian peanut picking harvesters. Therefore, the 7 peanut harvesters sold by Yifa Agricultural Machinery in 2019 were the result of Zhang Guojun's control.
In this regard, Zhang Guojun explained: "Actually, more peanut harvesters could be sold in 2019, but at that time I was afraid of after-sales problems, so in the end many users came to buy and I didn't sell them. As a result, through feedback from a harvesting season, Zhonglian's peanuts harvester. There is basically no quality problem with the harvester, so there are very few users who need after-sales service. Moreover, the training of Zhonglian is also in place, and users can easily solve it when they buy it back and operate and maintain it, and we nearly don’t need to worry about it.”
After the positive precipitation in 2019, Zhang Guojun will let go of his hands and feet in 2020. With the efforts of all employees, Yifa Agricultural Machinery sold more than 50 units of Zhonglian harvest peanut picking harvesters in 2020. For such a good sales performance, Zhang Guojun was a little annoyed. "Although I have made adequate preparations in the past 20 years, I still have little market forecast. I only ordered more than 50 peanut harvesters from the manufacturer. I did not expect that the market feedback of Zhonglian peanut harvester was so good, more than 50 machines. It was sold out very quickly, and subsequent users did not buy it. If the supply is sufficient, we can sell at least 80 units."
It is also on this basis that Zhang Guojun is very confident in the sales of peanut harvester by Zhonglian in 2021, and has set a target of 150 units, striving to win the Audi A6 Award from Zhengzhou Zhonglian. "My confidence mainly comes from two points. First, we got involved in the peanut harvester market relatively early, so basically all users in Liaoning Province know that they come to us to buy peanut harvester. Second, the user base of Zhonglian peanut harvester has grown. It is very reliable, and the word-of-mouth spread among users is very wide. Many users know that buying Zhonglian peanut harvesters can make money. At present, these users who buy the harvester can have an average annual workload of about 1,500 acres without cross-regional operation. The basic ability of cross-regional operation If it reaches nearly 3,000 acres, it will basically be able to pay back the cost of the harvester in the same year. Therefore, with such high economic benefits, more and more users will buy Zhonglian peanut harvesters.”
