Deere started the process of this a LONG time ago. I was a dealer, saw a lot of things happen. I started in 1992.
In the late 90's Deere saw that they were 'missing out' on sales of 'cheap' (affordable....) lawn mowers. What deere had at the time was a steady growth rate, which was mostly ag products but t chunk of it was C&CE (consumer and commercial equipment-aka lawn mowers). The C&CE stuff that they had was good quality. Very good actually. I remember the LX series mowers well, sold thousands of them and worked on probably just as many all the way past the day we ditched JD. I think the last one rolled through the shop in 2018. It was THOSE customers who left a huge impression on me! They kept coming back year after year, even when we had to get deere service and repair parts from the dealer at MSRP, and then marked it up 15% to cover our costs. They knew it but they trusted our little shop and the folks that worked there. That part I miss, and that's about the only thing I miss about working at that dealer. And the old (original) boss...and their family. Great folks.
Anyway in about 98 or thereabouts Deere saw opportunity to sell cheap mowers. They had the STX30 and STX38 riders which were decently built cheap mowers, but they bought the Scotts and Sabre lines. Scotts and Sabre were the predecessors to the L series, the L102, L110, L118, etc. These were cheaply built and lesser quality than the STX series that they "replaced". The old Kohler Command single on the STX series was gone in "favor" of the cheap briggs & scrapiron. Deere has so much buying power that they dictate what they are going to pay Briggs for those engines, so Briggs said ok if you want it cheaper, we'll make it cheaper...and sent operations for a lot of castings and forgings to CHINA. Gotta love that cheap labor. Then not long aftre the Scotts and Sabre and the beginning of the L series was being sold at Home Depot and Lowes. The dealers were forced to work on them (contracted actually) even though they didn't sell them. So what was the reason for the dealers to exist if they aren't gonna be able to compete with Lowes? Well, the big box stores and the dealer and JD had an agreement that neither could sell the mowers at anything less than MSRP. The price was the price, period. Millions of folks flocked to the big box stores to buy these piles of steaming feces, and millions of them took them back to the same stores with problems if they had any. The big box stores don't work on anything, so they'd direct you to the contracted dealership, which may have been 40-50-60 or however miles away. "We" (the deere dealer at the time) didn't want anything to do with this massive mistake, but deere was seeing cubic dollar signs. Over time people started getting wind of what was happening and people realized that Deere is going after the mass market more than they were helping the smaler dealerships (like the one I was at). But the cheap garbage they were turning out & selling at the big box stores was selling like hotcakes while the dealers-who used to sell thousands of STX38's and LX172's-were hung out to dry. Especially the smaller dealers since their bread and butter was, lawn mower sales and service. Like the one I was at.
In 2004 we told Deere to come get their junk and take it to the big dealer down south. In under a month we were green-free except a bunch of parts, which slowly depleted over time as we still had a lot of great customers who preferred us to work on their stuff rather than the big corporate dealer chain. And I don't blame them! We were then focused on Kubota from that point on. But, with that said, our good customers who had green equipment did not stop doing business with us. As time went on and their equipment wore out, we took them on trade and they bought orange. And they mostly loved Kubota stuff, it was comparable to Deere in quality but the support was a little better and a little more convenient (mostly...), until the chain of deere dealers opened a store 4 blocks away (which is still there-I interviewed there earlier for employment).
In the meantime big box places were selling those cheap mowers and when folks want them worked on or serviced, they had to go to the dealer, and the local dealer is kind of hard to get to (kind of a bad location) and they're corporate-and it shows in how they do business. The "mom and pop" feel of the smaller dealerships, is pretty close to being GONE, and a lof of longtime (and now older) deere customers resent that corporate atmosphere. I don't blame them, not one bit. I can't think of very many perks to shopping at a big chain store as opposed to a smaller mom-and-pop shop, and I have worked both and done business with both. These older folks are talking about this stuff, and people are getting wind of it, in this area. The deere store's sales numbers are down, of course economic conditions are part of it, but there is also the aspect of this chain having too many stores in such a small area which shoots themselves in the foot when sales numbers dip. THe overhead is still there but they depend heavily on sales numbers to keep the places going. This is a nationwide issue with deere dealers. Competition plays into it as well. In this area if you are driving somewhere, you can't help but notice all of the orange CUT's and lawn equipment, it's everywhere. If you see green ones, it's because the owners are brand loyal (for now). My neighbor belongs to that category. X320, wouldn't have anything else-even though he could cut his yard in 1/2 the time if he'd try a zero turn, and I've offered him mine to try (he won't).
Then add in labor costs, both at the dealer level AND the corporate level. Labor costs are a huge bill to pay. You've got folks in some states that think they can have entry level jobs for $30/hr, and there are a few of those here too. I tell them this: If you want $30/hr I expect to see profits-if I don't see them, you're out of here because there's about 10 other applications that I have to go through and out of those 10, I would bet 8 of them will do the same job for $20. Entitlement at it's best in some cases. In other cases it's because workers (if you call them that...) have bills, which are their own fault. You didn't "have" to knock whats-her-name up 4 times and then run around on her. You didn't "have" to take up your habits and addictions, and noone forced you to buy a $500,000 house when you could live in a $100,000 house just fine. Nor did you "have" to buy a $95,000 pickup truck and wear $400 pair of shoes. That's the stuff that causes labor costs to go up and up and up. Then on top of that you have the unions who keep saying "we want more because it costs more to live". It sure does, but ask yourself why. Labor costs go up, companies have no choice but to pass the cost on to customers, who have to pay more. The consumer always bears the brunt of cost increases every single time. THen you have a government who keeps enacting more and more and more and more and more laws, rules, regulations-which all cost a little here and there, but ya know what? If you put a penny in a jar every day, in a year, you end up with 365 pennies. It adds up. But I think a lot of people either fail to, or refuse to, understand this, and now this whole "inflation" thing is showing how expensive these regulations, laws, rules, and such cost. And labor costs! And forced insurance and mandated minimum wages. If we keep letting them, they'll just price the entire USA out of business, starting with the middle class. The rich will remain rich or get richer, the poor will remain poor. The middle class WILL disappear. But I don't think people care?? They see big numbers thrown around on TV, and leadership says "it'll only cost a penny a day". That's just justification for a price increase, among other things. People are dumb about this stuff but it ain't rocket surgery to figure out!
So with all that said, my experience with deere tells me that I am not the least bit surprised that some operations are moving to Mexico. I'm surprised it took them this long to be honest.
