I could have a nice farm if I could combine all of the failed dealerships within 50 miles of here.
Many reasons for that - one is it's a tough business to remain profitable. People need cars - tehy don't need boats, tractors, motorcycles, atvs, etc. Times get tough and they don't buy. Dealerships fold.
RK has the financial backing to weather the storm, so that is a good thing. But as a large successful company I'm sure they have accountants that watch the numbers, and have benchmarks and goals to hit - if they don't make $X selling tractors, later gator.
ALL retail has performance benchmarks - how much turnover, sales per sf of space, etc, etc. They study what brings in foot traffic, what folks buy with what, etc. All those reward club/neigbors club bits are mostly for their own benefit on who buys what, when, etc. Haven't seen that at RK...bad for them. They don't know I have horses, turkeys, chickens, a tractor, cats, dogs..tehy would if htey were tracking my purchases. TSC does..and they send me incentives to keep coming back.
It's very costly to get a new customer rather than keep the ones you have coming back. And as the market saturates with 'farm stores' the only new customer to you is one took from a competitor. That can get expensive.