guitarman
1st Mate
For years i wondered why there weren't more Downeast boats sold on the west Coast and after talking to a number of the downeast boat builders on the East Coast they explained to me why that is. Simply put most are small family run business so it's just to expensive to do much marketing in the west. I've beening studying the small trailerable boat market 25' to 29' for a number of years i was looking for as close to the perfect boat to cruise from Seattle to Alaska in. out of all the boats i bought and did the cruise in they all fell short untill i did it in a small down east style pilot house. this market for a nice lets say 25' to 29' foot boat is not being addressed like it could be. Ranger tug saw the need and is selling alot of boat, so much so that Nordic Tug began building there 26' tug again that they had discontinued for many years. Because they saw that market was not being meet. So here is what I propose Now no one can afford to market these downeast boats set up a sale team in Seattle it to expensive, especially for an experiment.
But what if several of you boat builders let say 10 builder got together pool our resources and we get a booth at the Seattle Boat Show now here is where it gets fun, We need a boat for people to see get on touch and feel.
Could all of you builder pool your resourse and build a 26 or 27 9.5 beam cruising boat/ Fishing Boat. galley up head up, no motor box, as big of hard top as possible, in Seattle people live under the hard top. make this Test boat very nice, keep the name generic so it represents your whole group. Then every one that participate in purchasing the booth have some very nice Brochures made up full color with pictures of you own boat price list. and options with lots of details with package pricing [ Talk more about that at another time.] And let people see this boat up close and personal Then take the boat from Seattle Show to the Portland Show then the Vancouver show. I have trucks that i could move the boat from one show to the next show and sea trial the boat if people wanted to order one. Maybe at lest one of the builders of the test boat could be there to answer question and help me sale orders for the boats. I have the room to store a boat or two at my Facility between shows I have a number of other ideas but this is enough for one post, is any one interested is seeing if this would work???? Feel free to add thoughts, shot the idea full of holes or what ever. and if its a bad idea i will quit posting about selling more boat out west. IF you builders think it would work Why not try to put something together for next year.
I would be happy to help with the marketing end of things.
But what if several of you boat builders let say 10 builder got together pool our resources and we get a booth at the Seattle Boat Show now here is where it gets fun, We need a boat for people to see get on touch and feel.
Could all of you builder pool your resourse and build a 26 or 27 9.5 beam cruising boat/ Fishing Boat. galley up head up, no motor box, as big of hard top as possible, in Seattle people live under the hard top. make this Test boat very nice, keep the name generic so it represents your whole group. Then every one that participate in purchasing the booth have some very nice Brochures made up full color with pictures of you own boat price list. and options with lots of details with package pricing [ Talk more about that at another time.] And let people see this boat up close and personal Then take the boat from Seattle Show to the Portland Show then the Vancouver show. I have trucks that i could move the boat from one show to the next show and sea trial the boat if people wanted to order one. Maybe at lest one of the builders of the test boat could be there to answer question and help me sale orders for the boats. I have the room to store a boat or two at my Facility between shows I have a number of other ideas but this is enough for one post, is any one interested is seeing if this would work???? Feel free to add thoughts, shot the idea full of holes or what ever. and if its a bad idea i will quit posting about selling more boat out west. IF you builders think it would work Why not try to put something together for next year.
I would be happy to help with the marketing end of things.