Service? Anyone?

[sandm]

old mc/nautty/mb/centurion dealer in boise did this for customers on the payette lake for a few years. there was a hefty charge to send a guy up 2 hours, pull the boat and bring it back to boise. round trip was almost 6 hours. they did it for service and winterization and if you had warranty work they still charged to bring the boat down.
dunno if they still do but my guess is no as they lost every brand but mb during the downturn and are operating now out of a makeshift location.

[IDBoating]

Jeff Bezos is a billionaire because everyone else said "that is impossible" and he said "no its not"!

I happen to be pretty close to Amazon's history from Day One, and that's not actually the mantra that made them what they are today.

I'm a huge fan of entrepreneurism, but the rule of thumb is that for every business attempt that succeeds, ten attempts fail. We hear of the successes, but not so much about the folks that worked hard and invested everything and still didn't make it. Usually that's not because the idea itself was flawed, but because creating and growing and (especially) sustaining a business is very difficult. Most idea people aren't good at running a business, and most business people aren't good at ideas. (Bezos is one of the rare ones that can do both, I suspect he would have been successful at whatever business concept he chose to pursue.)

That said - if you think this is a great business opportunity, go for it! Make it happen! That's one of the things that makes America awesome, you can choose to pursue your dream. I just met an Armenian immigrant last weekend, he's been here nine years and a citizen for three. Came over with absolutely nothing. His teenaged son, who flies with mine in drone racing competitions, talks about how his Dad would work 20 hours, then sleep four, for 6-7 days straight never leaving the little shop where he was building his business. The guy sacrificed, risked what little he had, and committed to make it happen while having a wife and kids in a strange country where he barely spoke the language. Today, he's the world's largest dealer of FPV piloting equipment in the world... is known and respected by everyone in the industry... gives back like crazy (just drops prize money and awards at races out of nowhere)... is giving jobs to other folks in the industry... and is one of the most patriotic people I've met. The guy could not be prouder to be an American, the country where he started with nothing but could chase his dreams and make them come true.

If you think this is a great opportunity, that there's an unserved market niche and you have the solution, give it a shot! We'll all cheer you on. I'm totally serious. Nothing would make us here on TO happier than to see you succeed.

[freeheel4life]

old mc/nautty/mb/centurion dealer in boise did this for customers on the payette lake for a few years. there was a hefty charge to send a guy up 2 hours, pull the boat and bring it back to boise. round trip was almost 6 hours. they did it for service and winterization and if you had warranty work they still charged to bring the boat down.
dunno if they still do but my guess is no as they lost every brand but mb during the downturn and are operating now out of a makeshift location.

Sandm, IWS has a guy that bought property in Lakefork/Donelly and is servicing their customers up there. We started doing the mobile service this summer. Ive been up every other Friday and sometimes every Friday if new boats are breaking. From the tech side/POV it is a mondo PITA and I really dont like doing it. I could go on and on about it but I wont.

[sandm]

I was referring to WSPS. back in the mid 2000's it was wsps and iws. the tige dealer was out in caldwell- think it was tim but he lost the license in the mid 2000's and became a long haul driver. iws has always ran a good shop and, although i didn't buy my supra there, the old shop manager treated me well. good bunch over there.

wsps, not sure how they are even still in business. they were caught up in the "scam" in the mid 2000's to overpay on a boat and you would get rebated back like 15k after X years. it was a huge deal and I know it drove a lot of customers from them. http://www.wakeworld.com/forum/showthread.php?t=402591
can't imagine that MB is keeping the lights on for them but being in that low rent shop is probably helping

[scoot18]

Lots of good perspectives in this thread. Just to comment on the margins, not sure if it still holds true today; but my brother sold Malibu's and Mastercraft's part time for Conrad Bros at Smith Mountain Lake back in the mid 90's and at that time he said that the cost of the boat was approx 30 to 35% the sale price of the boat that is a pretty hefty profit. Another volume thing, if you're selling fewer units your margin (profit) on each unit has to be higher. May be entirely different today and surely even though the #'s may seem low nationwide for high end watersport boats it has to be much more today than it was over 20 years ago.

[IDBoating]

my brother sold Malibu's and Mastercraft's part time for Conrad Bros at Smith Mountain Lake back in the mid 90's and at that time he said that the cost of the boat was approx 30 to 35% the sale price of the boat that is a pretty hefty profit.

Hmm... we did a deep analysis of this market a few years ago and found (to be very precise here) the markup from wholesale (what the dealer pays) to the MSRP (the sticker price) was about 30-35%. That's the same number as yours, but "inverted". Did you mean what I just typed? What you typed suggests that dealers TRIPLE their cost for the boat when selling it. That definitely doesn't happen today, and I'd be absolutely amazed if it ever happened in this market. It's an odd coincidence that the number is the same, but expressed differently.

I believe the MSRP has about 33% margin in it to give the dealers some wiggle room. If you do a full custom order, they know you're motivated and don't need to haggle too much - those are high profit sales. But if they're at the boat show, directly competing with the brand/dealer across the aisle in real time, that 33% leaves them some room to close your sale. Likewise spec boats that they order for their showroom floor but don't manage to sell during that model year... they can offer what appears to be a BIG discount to move that unit and still not lose money. (That's how we got our 2009 24Ve, as a leftover in 2010, and the dealer handed us their invoice from Tige so unless they were super-skilled at Photoshop I know exactly what they paid and how that compared to 2009's MSRP. Surprise, it was about 30-35%.)