Boater's World no more

M

Matt Gurnsey

New member
I don't know if this has been discussed before- I haven't seen it.

Ritz Camera, which owns Boater's World, has declared Bankruptcy, and in a hearing Yesterday the assets of Boater's World were sold to a liquidation company.

Expect Circuit City like closing sales. There may be some good buys here, but expect the "30% off" to be off of suggested retail prices, not actual previous selling prices.

For the lst number of years, BW has been at the Boat Shows selling product at or below cost to generate sales. Yeah, they sold a fair amount of stuff, but they didn't make enough profit to pay the show space off, let alone the staff working the booth.

Somebody once said that West Marine should be happy to make 2% in this market. Well, we now see what happens when a company doen't make a profit. 129 stores closing, and hundreds of people unemployed.

In similar news, Bladen Composits, formerly Palmer Marine, builders of Shamrock, Defiance, Albin and Tiderunner, has closed their doors after a month or more of not building any boats. Just the latest in the casualties of the current economy, aggravated by the inability of dealers to get credit lines to have boats in stock.

In good news- Spring has arrived, so boating season can't be far off- can it?!? :|
 
Matt Gurnsey":3gt4yc9m said:
Somebody once said that West Marine should be happy to make 2% in this market. Well, we now see what happens when a company doen't make a profit. 129 stores closing, and hundreds of people unemployed.

:|
Click to expand...

A....Ya...that was me.
I did not cause 129 stores and hundreds of people to become unemployed though by being an effective consumer. We can thank our financial institutions and lack of regulation for that.
To place my brash comments in perspective, the 2% is in connection with the extra sales that come the stores way as a result of price matching. They can still get the huge markups from less effective consumers or those bent on delivering a donation along with the competitive price for an item.

My local Boaters world was actually a more pleasant store than WM with staff more eager to help.
 
I wasn't saying anyone caused the failure of Boater's World, other than Boater's World themselves. By selling at or below cost too often, they were not profitable, and so failed as a company.

No amount of government regulation or changes to financial institutions would change that.

And price matching at 2%, or 5% becomes a dangerous practice, because of the smallness of the boating community. Once word gets out, then many boaters will want below market prices.

Short term, this may be good for boaters. Long term it is bad for the boating industry- where will boaters go to see actual product, and get items from an in stock source? Buying online is great, but there is a downside.

Just remember three things-

Best Price

Best Service

Best Quality

You can not have all three. Which one do you want to give up when you buy?
 
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