Crazy times!

[Domsz06]

Being that I have never had a Tige dealer worth a Hoot near me since I have owned this Tige I always look around for the best deal. I'm sorry but when I can find a deal for 5-10k difference in price I'm gonna buy the cheaper boat. Yes I agree you should support your local dealer, but I have never lived near one so to me it doesn't matter.

If I had a dealer that took care of me and did top notch service I can promise you I would buy from him. But if he is marking his boats up 5-10k over what I can get it someplace else I'm sorry I would buy the cheaper boat, and take it to the better service place.

[Bandsecurity]

My personal sales motto: "Maybe the reason it seems that price is all customers care about is . . . that you haven't given them anything else to care about." Good service and a great relationship will trump price 90% of the time if all other things are equal.

[JWALK]

Jwalk, what is your opinion on the internet marketplace for boats? I'm just curious. Also, what do you think of the concept of dealers forging strategic alliances with sites like boattrader, onlyinboards, boats.com, etc.? I mean, it seems that in general, business owners know their own business and their own industry quite well, but they need to hire professionals with specialized knowledge to do certain tasks (ie. accountants for taxes, lawyers for legal, etc.). I'm not in sales, but I'd have to believe internet sales are a completely different animal than are bricks and mortar sales. As such, I'd think some of the people who make their living doing online sales could help the guy who traditionally does bricks and mortar sales move inventory online. I would also think they could help you reach more potential buyers. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd just love to hear a dealer's thoughts on that.

The internet is great for us and our website has been huge for us the last year or so since we teamed up with Clear Channel. The problem is when dealers start advertising prices on new product. Not only is this breaking the Dealer agreements we sign each year but it also devalues the new and used market. I feel sorry for the Tige owners in a VERY large state that have a dealer that has decided to destroy your resale value on the boats you bought from them just months or years ago by blowing boats out below at or below cost. But in reality they are destroying the value in all of the Tige's throughout the nation.

The other thing that becomes the problem from internet shopping is the extreme differences in options on comp boats. You can add 20k of options to an RZ4.

This is a cool topic for me to see all your thoughts because it truelly is something I live every day.

[xpjim1]

My personal sales motto: "Maybe the reason it seems that price is all customers care about is . . . that you haven't given them anything else to care about." Good service and a great relationship will trump price 90% of the time if all other things are equal.

I would agree up to a certain price point. If the pricing difference exceeds the customer perception of good service and relationship, price will win.

I know in the mortgage business we did studies on this and the difference was 1/4 percent in rate or approxiamtely 1/2 point in fees. The closer to these thresholds the customer is going with best price. These studies were years ago. Market has changed now and a I am not sure of the thresholds today

[xpjim1]

The internet is great for us and our website has been huge for us the last year or so since we teamed up with Clear Channel. The problem is when dealers start advertising prices on new product. Not only is this breaking the Dealer agreements we sign each year but it also devalues the new and used market. I feel sorry for the Tige owners in a VERY large state that have a dealer that has decided to destroy your resale value on the boats you bought from them just months or years ago by blowing boats out below at or below cost. But in reality they are destroying the value in all of the Tige's throughout the nation.

The other thing that becomes the problem from internet shopping is the extreme differences in options on comp boats. You can add 20k of options to an RZ4.

This is a cool topic for me to see all your thoughts because it truelly is something I live every day.

How do you define new product. Current model year ex 2009 or new boat ex excess new 2007 and 2008 boats?

[Domsz06]

The internet is great for us and our website has been huge for us the last year or so since we teamed up with Clear Channel. The problem is when dealers start advertising prices on new product. Not only is this breaking the Dealer agreements we sign each year but it also devalues the new and used market. I feel sorry for the Tige owners in a VERY large state that have a dealer that has decided to destroy your resale value on the boats you bought from them just months or years ago by blowing boats out below at or below cost. But in reality they are destroying the value in all of the Tige's throughout the nation.

The other thing that becomes the problem from internet shopping is the extreme differences in options on comp boats. You can add 20k of options to an RZ4.

This is a cool topic for me to see all your thoughts because it truelly is something I live every day.

The problem with this that a lot of us on here is that we all know that the 20k in mark up is also factoring in your markup for each item.

It also doesn't help any when our own members are getting the shaft on items. (G-Money)

I guess I'm just playing devil advocate because I have never been taken care of by a good dealer. Dealers always laugh at me when I come in looking for items, or try and take me to the cleaners. I'm Like everyone else out there and have worked darn hard for my $ I'm looking for the best deal. Maybe it's the fact that I'm young and I'm always looking for the best. I have never had good service after the sale at any dealership whether it be boats, cars, bikes, waverunners, or anything else. If you claim to be willing to have service after the sale, then why would u not meet me with the price I find? Esp. since you may lose some on the sale, but you will make it up on the service, right????

The internet has also hurt dealers, esp boat dealers because now the avgerage person can find the part for lots cheaper. Now Dealers are loosing profit because they can't sell their products for the 300% markup.

It's a tough world out there right now. The smart business person put money aside when the times were good, for the days where today is bad.

[MoneyPity]

How do you define new product. Current model year ex 2009 or new boat ex excess new 2007 and 2008 boats?

IMO the new 2007 you bought this year or like me at the end of last year that boat became a 1 year old boat or older the moment you took possession.

NADA doesn't care that it sat in inventory for a year or more and the next buyer looking to buy a used 2007 or 2008 in 2009 most likely will perceive initially that the 07 is a 2 year old boat.

So even though you might be getting what appears to be a great deal on the 07 boat here late in 2008 you will likely eat a lot of depreciation on the boat due to model year. It could be even worse if the potential buyer was interested in the build date. My model year 2007 was built in 2006 and depending on a prospective buyer they may value it even less.

Does NADA have a class for"new" last year(s) boat model or does it have current model year as "New" and last or previous model year as used"

You may think I am wacky but I have saved significant dollars thinking along these lines even though "technically the 07 may be new" but in the eyes of a buyer down the road probably won't care that it was still "new" when bought in a model year newer than the boat sold.

With the market falling out the bottom on new and used boats the situation is probably even worse than usual.

Look at da.bell's situation. His 06 has depreciated to a point where it is worth less than what he owes and his 07 RZ2 was 1 model year old when he purchased it so even though he got one heck of a deal on it it's worth is now that of a used 2007 and not a used 2008 even though the difference might be slight. So not only is da.bell fighting a soft market due to the economy he is also getting hit with model year depreciation IMO. Just my :02 but it has worked for me on numerous "new" item

[FIC]

In my opinion as a dealer , you dont purchase a boat you purchase a dealership, a relationship. In order to survive as a dealer we have to make our margins to continue. Those margins allow us to give the best possible service and keep you and your family on the water. Their is a tremedous ammount of cost involved in staying up to date with service knowledge, test equipment, and diagnostic info. No dealer can survive on warrantee and service a lone. I believe that the consumers think that the dealers make big bucks per boat sale but that is not the case. Due to internet shopping all dealers have had to trim their margins to the bare bones. And why would you think as a dealer that we should have to handle a warranty issue on a boat that was purchased out of our territory? In what ever bussiness you are currently in would you be content to handle any same product sold in your area that was purchased at a lesser price , but the custermer wanted you to work on said product because they knew that you had a reputation for fixing a problem the first time, and or the best service at the lowest possible pricing. Please dont take this the wrong way im just trying to explain our situation.

[MoneyPity]

I agree FTC with a lot of what you say but circumstances may require a customer to go to you for service. He has moved to your area. His original dealer no longer sells Tiges etc etc.

Should you walk away from any service work especially T&M work. Or even warranty work in first year you will still have marginal contribution to bottom line. years 2&3 of warranty period sign customer up for maintenance contract that will for a preferred customer who is paying you basically a preferred customer fee will get a slight discount on the labor but by doing this the customer can save money and you are building a residual income with maintenance agreements. Once you build a raving fan of the customer you have every say 3 years to sell another maint. contract to cover oil, tyranny oil and adjustments to the minor stuff for a fixed fee per year. Alter it it fits your business but bring in customers to use your service capacity and bring in high margin dollars to the NFL.

Our CEO will give away our software products in some system sizes to kick out the competition but mainly again to build residual service/maint based business. We are not self sufficient on residual income alone but if we reduce R&D and a couple of areas in our business we could run 5-7 tears on residual service contract revenue.

In these tight economic time now is the time to see product support contract. For years 2&3 of Tige contract where Tige does not cover labor sell the customer a maintenance agreement that discounts subsequent labor.

Come up with different service programs that they pre-pay and build a residual base income where you may not have to go crazy getting the jobs.

Using Service Work and fair contracts you can build Raving Fans in your customer base.
At the time when Joe Customer is interested in a new Boat whether it is a Tige or not you should have customer trust because of previous dealings.

Because of the economy people will Prue-pay for service labor contracts that tie they into you for say 3 years. If the customer wants a new boat sell it were there is a contribution to the bottom line but make Joe Customer feel he got the deal of his lifetime. Show him MSEP and how far you are discounting. DO not show your cost (show me).

We do these types of things in our software business and in many cases to not loose a customer to a competetive we give away software that has a marginal cost after development is capitalized and we sell multi term servcie/maint contracts. This allows us to Win the customer, contribute to bottom line and hopefully build that raving fan who will buy the product when next version is out.

Our CEO and major shareholder will not loose business to price or service and sometimes R&D. His philosophy over his many years of making money is give away the razor, sell the blades.

If you have good to great customer care not only will service business build and fund itself but sales will come in time. Use the internet as a tool to see where people will expect product to be priced at. Market you service programs and capabilities.

This is just my worth from running R&D, E&D + Service and thankfully R&D again for a 20 Million + small company.

Good Luck and Good prospecting and selling .

[illiniboarder88]

I always assumed you were required to do warranty work on Tiges via your dealership agreement with Tige. Maybe I'm wrong, but manufacturer warranties would seem to become much less valuable if they could only be utilized at one dealership. I understand that dealers obviously would want to make the sale, but I don't really understand why they'd not want to pick up the service if they fail to get the sale. This seems like shooting oneself in the foot. Given what it costs to maintain a boat, I would have thought dealers do pretty well on service margins. In fact, I would think there are many instances where a dealer would make more on the service of the boat than the sale. This obviously would take place over a period of years, but even after compensating for the time value of money, I'd think it would work out that way in many cases. Once you have the overhead, the marginal cost of servicing an additional boat must be pretty low.

[Original Wing Nut]

WING NUT,
I think a big part of my current issues have been Tige oriented BECAUSE of the previous dealer you mentioned. I do not have this issue with my other brands (Regal and Cruisers Yachts) right now because we have had them for a long time and have established ourselves as very good service guys to our customers and have also created an understanding among my fellow (brands) dealers. I would never say we are perfect by any means but I believe 100% that we are Utah's best servicing dealer. That said, sales are everything to our bottom line (and most, if not all of the other dealers) but we know that service is the only way to keep our customers and gain new customers. I would guess you are in N. SLC area if you use Freds (who I agree is great in service). I hope you know we offer at home pick ups for your boat if you need anything done to your boat (we don't want Freds turning you into an Epic guy).

Anyways, I don't type well enough to explain all my thoughts on this issue but I am a sales guy so I can put up a pretty good defense verbally on why to stay in your buying area to purchase your boat. My first response is that selling/servicing boats is nothing like selling or servicing DVD's or cars for that matter.

So all you Utahn's should test me out on that one and make a pack to stay in Utah to buy and I will keep my end of the deal and treat you like a "BOAT KING or QUEEN".

JWalk, I in no way wanted what I wrote to sound like I have received poor service from your company. I in fact over a year ago had you guys replace some skins for my Tigé just as you were starting with Tigé. I brought them in and your guys took care of them through warranty. I have not had a reason to be back in for service since. I do my own winterization and routine maintenance so I generally require little attention. I am going to have some things done this winter and will come in and talk to you on those to give you a chance to shine. I am a Tigé guy so I think on my next purchase you will be the guy, but that is a year or so away. The only other brands that I have experience with are BU, MC and Moomba. My bro has the latter and I wouldn't have one of those with the current dealer and the way my bro has been treated after not buying a boat from them. He bought used and they definitely copped an attitude with him for not buy new from them. You know why I would not buy a BU in the region and I still think MC are overpriced and some people look at it as a prestige thing, and I don't like that label.

I think what all of us Tigéowners are saying is we want our dealers to make it, but not all at once on any one of us. I think a successful dealership is definitely built over many years of taking care of customers. That's all we want is to be taken care of, not taken advantage of.

[SPBFAN]

(we currently have three different brands, my brother bought another brand wake boat because the service on Tigé locally was horrific) we always end up at the same place (Fred's) for service on items that are not covered by warranty

Fred's gives great service. I remember taking our boat there when I was a kid. I know for a fact that the boat dealers make a ton of money on repairs. I do not know about how much they make on warranty issue.

Here is my deal. It is all about service. I am one that will call a customer and tell them them when I will have a diagnostics done, and estimate for repairs, and the time that will be needed to finish the boat. I will not wait for them to call me if there is a delay in that time projection and the delay would most certainly not be from putting a customer who purchased a boat from me in front of them. If the person did not buy the boat from me I don't look at this as an issue that they are lesser priority. I would make them a higher priority so they will continue to come back, refer friends, and bring in new business, I would also hope that I would be the person to sell them a boat in the future.

There is a big balance you have to have in order to please all customers. It is all about how the dealer conditions every customer walking in the door. Those who just want service, Those who bought a boat and are in for service, and those who are from out of the territory purchases and are needing service or warranty work. I personally look at it not as customers but opportunities to make new friends and relationships with people that go beyond business. Those are the people that will be there when times are tough like now and will work to help you obtain more business. Personally I would never turn away a person who bought out of territory or treat them any different than if they had bought the boat from me. I would sure try to find out where I went wrong though in inking a deal with them. If you take things personal it most certainly will damage your business.

any ways I don't know if I made sense or not I just put my thoughts down. so here is my worth.

[SPBFAN]

Last time my boat was there they even did a detail cleaning for free!!

JWALK this is the things that will make you diffrent than the rest and keep customers coming in the door.

[FIC]

Money pit most of the dealers who sell at cost or below have some of the poorest custormer satisfaction, they do make back their money on higher service bills and poor warranty work. We have a very high csi because we have always gone above and beyond what is expected . If we have a warranty issue we not only fix it ,but in some cases we modify and make it better than before. And we have never turned away a custormer who has moved into our area from another, what I am saying is there are procedures that all same make dealers are supposed to adhere to and we cant allow a custormer to negotiate from an out of territory source from a dealer who has a bad reputation or who under cuts us all and then that custormer expects us to handle all his or her issues. Their has to be consquences for your actions other wise there would be no incentive for them to buy from us the next time. If we took care of their issues and made them happy as we would they would still shop for the cheaper deal again and we wouldnt survive.

[skyliner]

JWALK,

It's all about the mighty buck. I don't care if the economy is booming or busting I am going to give my hard earned money to a car or boat dealership that is going to give me the BEST DEAL PERIOD. I am always willing to give the local dealership my business but if he can't match the best price
TOUGH $HIT. If a dealership can't handle the fact I went somewhere else and purchased the same exact product for less money then that is too bad and will hurt them in the long run because I will be buying for a long time to come.

well said.....i as an car dealer should not get "booty hurt" if i can't match or beat a price from someone else.....the client has every right to shop around...it's his or her monies!