After two-and-a-half years of development, AgriTenders is now available to the public. Conceived by Shropshire farmer Sam Hartley, it enables farmers to put a free request out for a machine for hire or purchase, which will be seen by dealers within a selected radius. These dealers can then get in touch with the machines that meet the requirements.
Sam says he had the idea after looking for a compact loader to use on the farm. “My local dealer didn’t have what I needed, and it was a time-consuming task to go through other dealer websites to see what they had in stock, if everything they had was even online.”
Finding farm kit
He worked with a local software developer to build the site, where farmers can select the category of machine they require and how much they want to spend. A description box allows for further details – so, in the case of a compact loader, users can specify maximum height and width, as well as loading capacity and reach. If there is a trade-in machine, a description box allows users to detail this.
For the dealers, they can choose to link salesmen to locations or have product specialists receive specific machinery requests. Once they accept a request, they will be provided with the customer details to follow up. Sam said he developed the site to help the industry and has priced the system to cover its costs with a very small profit margin.
“Instead of taking a percentage of each sale, we have opted to charge the dealer a flat fee of £20/depot, up to five depots, while the farmer has free access. However, until we can prove the lead generation potential of the site, it is free for dealers as well.”
At the time of writing there are multiple dealers on the site, some of which have several depots, with Sam in contact with companies across the whole of Great Britain to add more. He delayed enabling farmers to sign up to ensure that there were enough dealers online to provide results for most enquiries.
AgriTenders will continue to be developed as more people start to use the system. This will include adding additional categories and services, including for buildings and niche crops or operations. For more information, or to sign up, see www.agritenders.co.uk.