A recent editorial ("Your #1 Ally Against Big Boxes") shared research that says that customers want smaller, independent businesses to win over big box stores and I suggested strategies to take advantage of that.

Small is good, big is bad and your customers want small to win. That's the takeaway from a recent study, titled "Positioning Brands Against Large Competitors to Increase Sales."

New eras, big boxes and unhappy customers are among the top stories of 2014, according to you. We pulled the list of Rural Lifestyle Dealers most read stories for the year and Kubota's strategy to enter the large ag market tops the list

Rural Lifestyle Dealer's 2015 Business Trends & Outlook survey is now wrapped up and thank you to the dealers who responded. The official results will be released in our winter issue, but here's one nugget I can share: Your decision to pursue the rural lifestyle market is a good one.

A trip to EIMA International, an exhibition of agriculture equipment hosted biennially by FederUnacoma in Bologna, Italy, placed the words "rural lifestyle"? in a new context. FederUnacoma is the Italian Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers Federation.

A sprocket breaks on a zero-turn mower in late August. No big deal-just call the local dealership and schedule a repair. Unfortunately, it turned into a big deal for a rural lifestyle friend who shared his experiences in getting his mower repaired.

Three trends emerged as the Rural Lifestyle Dealer team walked the 500,000 square feet of indoor space and 19 acres of outdoor exhibits at the recent 2014 GIE+Expo

Polaris recently announced its promotional partnership for its power sports division with Costco Auto Program (CAP) -- a new take on the large retailer strategy. Costco will not sell, only display, a select group of products and then direct interested members to the closest dealer who has signed up with the program.

Consolidations and acquisitions have strengthened dealerships in many ways, but also made it much more complicated to plan for the next generation of owners. And, even those smaller family dealerships may discover the next generation thinks their future is outside the dealership.

Jeff Griggs is president of the National Tractor Parts Dealer Assn. and chief operations officer of All States Ag Parts, De Soto, Iowa. We talked recently about the parts business from his point of view, including working with equipment dealers.