There’s little doubt that ag equipment rollover programs have played a significant role in the last decade in increasing the sales volume of large farm machinery, particularly combines.

Rollovers are sales programs where dealers accept low hour trade-ins and a small cash payment in exchange for new equipment.

To better gauge the role rollover programs play in supporting replacement demand, in its most recent dealer survey, UBS Investment Research asked, “Do you use equipment rollover programs?” and “How important are they to sales of new equipment?”

What they found was most dealers do not utilize such sales programs, but they are split on their importance.

“While a majority (64%) do not use rollover programs to facilitate new equipment sales,” says Steven Fisher, analyst for UBS, “dealers overall were nearly evenly split over the importance rollover programs play in new equipment sales.”