Technical
The rationale for the introduction of the Certified Pre-Owned scheme has been directly driven by the recession of the last four or five years. This period of austerity has severely impacted our customers in the core areas of our business - golf clubs, landscape contractors and local authorities.
It is no secret that rounds of golf played over the past five years has shrunk as demands on household incomes have increased and disposable income has fallen. The result has been a significant decrease in golf club revenues, which directly affects their purchasing power. Also, central government finance restrictions to local authorities has resulted in severe cutbacks, many of them impacting on the groundcare teams at local council level.
We fully appreciate that, although customers want to purchase our equipment, it’s not always possible for them to do so due to lack of funds. That’s the main reason why we have introduced this Certified Pre-Owned initiative.
Customers will be, and are, surprised when they see the machines; we took some early models to Windsor in September2013 to gauge interest and most people thought they were new machines!
Second generation, not second-hand
One thing I want to make abundantly clear is that these are not second-hand machines; we look at them as second generation. That might sound like semantics but, in my view, a second-hand machine is one that has been traded in or put on the used market, given a cursory inspection to make sure its main features function and is sold, as is, without any meaningful warranty.
Our CPO machines are entirely different from
this. Looking at one of our walking greens mower, for example; we put it through a 90-point quality control check during refurbishment. And in the case of a larger machine, say a riding greens mower, this will have in excess of 300 quality checks. Once the refurbishment is completed, the machine is uploaded to our dedicated website,
www.ransomestrader.com, where it is sold on a first-come, first served basis - the price advertised on the website is the price the customer pays - there are no hidden costs.
The refurbishment process
We have an experienced team of technicians devoted to the CPO process who work in a dedicated production area within our manufacturing facility. Every machine is given a thorough inspection to identify what needs doing, before being stripped down; any worn or irreparably damaged parts are replaced, repainted in our paint plant if necessary and, throughout the process, it undergoes rigorous quality control checks.
During a mower’s life, there will be many updates to its functionality. For example, new wheel motors may have been introduced, or maybe updates to the command and control systems or a new design of a specific hydraulic pump. Our CPO machines will have all these updates incorporated into the refurbishment and all the safety decals will be renewed as a matter of course. We will regrind cutting units, replace bearings and seals, check and adjust
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An experienced team of technicians devoted to the CPO process work in a dedicated production area within our manufacturing facility
PC PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015 I 117
One thing I want to make abundantly clear is that these are not second-hand machines; we look at them as second generation
Check list for a riding greens mower
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