Take Care of Your Buyers

A few years ago a dad we show with was asking others in the group if they wanted to buy pig feed straight from the manufacturer. A three hour trip, he would take a flat bed trailer and load it up with feed for $3.00 per bag less than the feed dealer in town sold it for. While this may sound like a great idea, it’s typically not.

That particular feed dealer is normally in the top 3 volume buyers at the county sale. They don’t buy the champions but they bid on every exhibitor that buys feed from their store. They don’t buy them all, but they bid on all of them. I’ve seen their invoice total. It’s hard for me to imagine that they sell enough bags of feed at $3.00 of gross profit to truly make any profit from the sale of stock show feed.

They are also the ones that stock all the additives and last minute show supplies that nobody thinks of until the day prior to show. This feed store and thousands just like them peppered all across the U.S.A. are invaluable to our youth exhibitors and our small towns.

Discourage your exhibitors from buying online or from anyone that is not supporting your kids at THEIR sale, it will cost them much more than they could ever save.

Challenge: Highlight a top corporate buyer on your shows social media pages each month. Not only is it a great way to stay in front of your audience but its great advertising for your buyer’s businesses. A short interview with them would go along way in solidifying their spending at your auction AND will probably motivate others to spend more to get an interview too!