Boats.co.uk team up with Princess

t wouldn't be legal, if what they told you were true - but I don't think it is.
If you're interested in buying a 40m Princess, in the UK, from myself (being myself a Mr.Nobody, not even based in the UK), there's no "official" dealer on earth that can stop me from doing that - and yourself from doing such a stupid thing, of course! :D
For the very same reasons, I can't see why any UK dealer the UK really CAN NOT sell you anything.
My bet is that whoever told you that they couldn't sell you X actually meant that they were not INTERESTED, if you see what I mean.
Which is a completely different matter altogether... :)
 
"PMYS latest published accounts, they made a gross margin of 5.9% (and lost £2.2m). Thats a very small margin"

I fear that EBY will erode that margin further still. Look at what they did to Fairline. Devalued it, took what they could get out of it and walked. PMYS will need to control them so that the value of Princess is preserved. Unlike Fairline

IMO its a very bad move for Princess and PMYS
 
Look at what they did to Fairline. Devalued it, took what they could get out of it and walked. PMYS will need to control them so that the value of Princess is preserved.
Click to expand...

A little explanation on that observation perhaps !
Everything I have heard about EBY has been upbeat , from my own dealings with them to very a recent example of their aftersales ethos.
One of our club members did a p/x with them about a year ago,traded in a Fairline 48 for larger model and specified a stern thruster to be fitted.The horrid noisy thing conked out a few weeks ago,owner spoke to EBY and received a very good response ..being sorted at the moment.
 
MapisM said:
t wouldn't be legal, if what they told you were true - but I don't think it is.
If you're interested in buying a 40m Princess, in the UK, from myself (being myself a Mr.Nobody, not even based in the UK), there's no "official" dealer on earth that can stop me from doing that - and yourself from doing such a stupid thing, of course! :D
For the very same reasons, I can't see why any UK dealer the UK really CAN NOT sell you anything.
My bet is that whoever told you that they couldn't sell you X actually meant that they were not INTERESTED, if you see what I mean.
Which is a completely different matter altogether... :)
Click to expand...

I agree that it is illegal to impose a territory upon each dealer and enforce it to the point where no dealer can sell outside of their boundary. JFM will be able to clarify but we used to know it as 'Restictive Practices'.
However, it is legal for part of the discount structure to be linked to a territory so that the resident dealer should have a competitive advantage.

My read of it is that PMYS has distribution rights for Princess Yachts for the UK and other areas, as the UK distributor they have decided to appoint BCU as a dealer. I suspect you would find another company within the PMYS structure called Princess International Sales and Service who are also treated as a dealer and most likely on the same T&C's from PMYS as BCU and Burton Waters.

All in my opinion of course... :)
 
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Dilgaf

I think it is time you reveal the nature of your grudge against EBY.

Looking back at your posts, anything to do with EBY ( or seemingly Fairline) is astonishingly negative.

Have you bought from EBY?
If not, what drives your views?
If yes, specifically what did EBY do wrong?




diligaf said:
"PMYS latest published accounts, they made a gross margin of 5.9% (and lost £2.2m). Thats a very small margin"

I fear that EBY will erode that margin further still. Look at what they did to Fairline. Devalued it, took what they could get out of it and walked. PMYS will need to control them so that the value of Princess is preserved. Unlike Fairline

IMO its a very bad move for Princess and PMYS
Click to expand...
 
diligaf said:
Look at what they did to Fairline. Devalued it, took what they could get out of it and walked.
Click to expand...

They were selling a very outdated product which could only be sold on price. In anything we have realistically looked at the Princess equivalent is in a different league. It could be argued that they have actually enabled Fairline to survive rather than cause harm.

Henry :)
 
Where to start?

The current Fairline line up is, in my humble opinion very weak when compared to Princess. Lack of investment over the years means that compared side by side Princess are always going to win the customer. A sweeping statement and as the boats get bigger there are redeeming features to be found, not least the heavy customisation possible but the Fairlines I've seen have been sold on big discounts rather than being the better product. They are several years behind the curve in terms of design. I couldn't stand there and sell Fairline boats, I could easily sell Princess boats.

Do Princess need Essex to win Fairline customers? No. The product will do that. Someone looking for a new boat would be happy to buy a Princess and the previous sales machine didn't put any barriers in the way.

My immediate thoughts were there is a massive culture clash between Princess and Essex. But this forum is awash with praise for the Barke brothers in terms of their customer care and retention. That praise doesn't magically appear from nowhere so maybe BCU will fit into the Princess mould easier than I think, or should I say thought. That customer care will also bring with it an element of loyalty. Whilst Fairline owners can and might buy Princess boats anyway they will find it much easier with the known quantity of BCU holding their hand.

I don't know the Med market so can't comment if BCU will open up areas to Princess not previously served by the brand.

Is there room for more mouths at the Princess dining table? In the UK I'm not sure there is but there is a massive larder in the form of part exchanges. Princess aren't geared up to sell Part exchanges. Their hands are tied and it simply costs them too much money. BCU on the other hand sell part exchanges in their sleep. They can and have sold an engine on a pallet and they also have experience from under 15 feet to well over 70. There isn't much they haven't sold over the years.

Princess do sell part exchanges, BCU do it better.

Burton Waters are a micro BCU. They also sell boats that wouldn't otherwise be sold by Swanwick and as such might be able to salvage a deal where Swanwick struggle on the grounds of the p/x. They also have long standing loyal customers and don't need to sell vast quantities of product so hopefully they can still retain their niche in the market.

The big loser here is Fairline. They desperately need to clear the decks and introduce new boats which compete head on with the flat floors, big open interiors and large windows which Princess owners are taking for granted. I have no doubt the quality is there already.

Finally will we see cheaper deals on Princess boats on the basis you can play off one dealer against the other? Sadly I suspect not, unless you happen upon a stock boat which is out of sync then the supply and sale of boats will still be regulated by Swanwick. It's a very small pond out there.

A surprising announcement and one not without potential pitfalls on all sides but one assumes the various parties are bright enough to look after themselves.

All the above in my incredibly humble opinion.


Henry :)
 
A question to JFM - one which he might NOT (very understandably) want to answer in a public forum.....

When you had the amazing MATCH built, were you "Buying a Fairline" or were you (at least in part) buying into "EBY" ..... it's relevant as I would suspect JFM is the kind of customer that would keep Fairline alive - but would you buy another if BCUK (as they are now) were selling Princess - or would you buy a Princess instead?

What is the level of customer BRAND loyalty rather than "Dealer loyalty" like at this level of the market?

And fully understand that's not a question you might want to answer on here!
 
As an EBY customer let me try to answer.

The press release re boats.co.uk and Princess said that the decision as to which boat to buy is 50% down to the boat and 50% down to service.

I would not like to speculate as to the true percentage, but lets just agree for now.

As to the boat it is clearly the thing you sit on, so it has to be right. By right in this case I mean credible. To me Fairline, Princess and Sunseeker are all credible brands and I would buy any one of them. Some models more than others perhaps but there you go.

The next question when faced with handing over a really very large amount of money in stage payments is "ok, I am a business person, what happens if this all goes wrong and either the dealer or factory goes bust". Here Essex score as they have a decent balance sheet that would possibly shield you from some of this risk ( not all of it as you would not be the only person buying a boat so there would be lots of clamouring for cash!). So on a personal basis I was buying into FL and EBY. Would a buy a large boat from a small dealer? No. Just a personal view.

Next is the after sales service. New boats have snags - regardless of brand this is true. You need them sorted efficiently. I had dealt with them before and their after sales was excellent. My new boat has never had anything go wrong that would stop it moving. However ..... they took my T40 in PX. They sold it on and a few weeks later one leg exploded. Customer not happy. Essex collect boat, lend the customer their charter T47 as and when he needs it. Customer cant believe his luck. That kind of stuff seriously matters. When I bought my T40 within an hour of owning it I stuck it on bramble bank ( not so proud of that - cost the insurance £5000 and dented my pride - never been out in the solent before - honest guv) and Essex immediately offered me a Sealine they had in stock whilst mine was being fixed. I did not take them up on it, but after that why would you go anywhere else as long as you liked the boats they were selling?

So the dealer is important, so is the boat.

Some Fairlines are fresh, some are not ( no one could argue otherwise). I gather the S48/ T48 and S65 sell well. The others less so. In Cala Dor alone there are now 5 S65s, 3 of which have been delivered in the last 8 months. Unbeatable fly bridge - which is where we spend our time.

Would I buy a Princess? I don't like the Sport Fly series ( cant see the point of a small flybridge but the boat is lovely) but yes I would gladly own a Princess. Princess have lots of glass in the saloon, and not totally sure about that either in the Med sun (but it does look lovely) So brand loyalty - it like a car - you change from time to time.
 
ontheplane said:
A question to JFM - one which he might NOT (very understandably) want to answer in a public forum.....

When you had the amazing MATCH built, were you "Buying a Fairline" or were you (at least in part) buying into "EBY" ..... it's relevant as I would suspect JFM is the kind of customer that would keep Fairline alive - but would you buy another if BCUK (as they are now) were selling Princess - or would you buy a Princess instead?

What is the level of customer BRAND loyalty rather than "Dealer loyalty" like at this level of the market?

And fully understand that's not a question you might want to answer on here!
Click to expand...
Happy to try to answer on here. It's just my personal $0.02; others will think a bit differently but I suspect many will feel similar

I was buying the brand, the exceptional build level inc customisation, and the BCU service+financial protection layer. If either of the first 2 were missing I wouldn't have bought the boats. If the third were missing I might have wanted to buy the boats but would not have enjoyed it so much (and this is about enjoyment) but more importantly I dont think I'd have been able to. I needed BCU to sell my old boats, which they are astonishingly good at, and so BCU were 100% essential to the process. So to answer your Q, both the brand and an effective distributor are 100% essential in my book. Like your heart and your lungs, you cannot rank them - you need both.

Just to put that in some more perspective, my 2 boats sold by BCU were c. £700k and £1.8m. first person to step on board, introduced by BCU, bought them. With the latter, Match 1, BCU didn't underwrite the sale but I took a 3 year old Princess 64 in part ex and they underwrote the value of that, so they half underwrote my sale in effect. Sure enough, they sold the Princess for more than they promised me I'd get. They handled the whole thing - I owned a Princess 64 and never saw it. I doubt any other boat dealership in this country would or could do that. BCU are just outstanding at getting stuff done (and a pleasure to deal with, to boot). So Princess have gained, and Fairline have lost, something big here

Right now, I doubt I'd buy another Fairline even with BCU. Without BCU, even less likely. Time has moved on and Fairline's model development is going slowly. I've bought 2x their biggest boat, so there is nowhere to go. I like the Fairline team very much, and I know many of the boat builders and designers pretty well having spent a lot of time with them. They're all great guys and they do a great job and its a pleasure dealing with them. But Fairline the company seems to have too little model development, so for that reason I can't buy another. Or rather I can buy another, but they don't have one to sell. All rather a shame - most Sq78 owners end up leaving the brand because they run out of road. Some buy 2, like me and another guy in Antibes, but still you run out of road at some point.

And then Princess. The design of the boats is outstanding - opposite end of spectrum to Fairline in developing new models etc. The basic build quality is fine, as in the hulls don't break and the bulkheads stay attached. The finished look is outstanding, so long as you avoid the cheap airport lounge look of the saloons on some stock boats. Detailed build is very disappointing though. They are full of equipment omissions and cut corners. I could bore you to death with detail but there is just loads of corner cutting in the build of these boats. I'm talking Princess 82 or 88, so £3m and upwards. So, if you buy the boat you boringly have to spec even basic hygiene stuff (Glendinnings, lighting, real dishwasher and cooker) and then get into the detail of door knobs and other economies. This is dull and if you forget anything you end up like someone who ordered a very expensive car but didn't especially ask for electric windows and power steering, so didn't get them. Then there are small fuel tanks, touch screens you cant touch, bent guard rails when you look along them, and so on. Lawd knows if the black water system is any good, but I can assure you I'd know (up close and personal) within 3 months of taking delivery! (My blackwater system on Match 2 is properly done - top components, simple, isolator valves, pumps mounted on raised plinths so blackwater drains away when you open the piping, and so on. Fairline were happy to do it; don't know about Princess)

Anyway, if you're prepared to put in a lot of effort speccing the product well and taking nothing for granted, and if they will build one differently if the customer asks (at the 82 foot level, say), then the Princess would be a very fine machine indeed, and with the backing of BCU you could have an excellent package.

Fairline is looking a sad story and that is a shame. As I've said before, and absence of competition is a bad thing. We as customers are going to lose out in my view by having just the PrinSeeker duopoly in the UK market
 
All read with interest .

I'd kind of had a hunch that Princess would have a new dealer after the demise of the Fairline dealership.
The yard at Swanwick is running out of hard standing space, PMY had to store two large boats across the road for a while, the redesigned yard can't cope with big boat demand, but the Essex boys can and its not on rented ground which I'm sure is a bonus.
I've not got much to add to all that's on here other than after being a berh holder for 2 and a half years I've seen many new boats come and go, I've seen then delivered with faults, yellow crayon marking the faults that should have been right in the first place before they even left Plymouth. I've been asked on less than a year old boat to back up a very disappointed owner who's boat has spent nearly as much time back at the supplier as he's had out on the water.
I also have first hand from another forum member info on his 60 foot something less than two years old that still isn't right from its delivery that has poor blue gelcoat and a big list of faults that have just been brushed aside in the hope it will go away.
On a positive note I love the Princess range so let's hope the new guys can give a better service to people I know who I'm afraid feel a little disappointed with there investment.
 
JFM..I still remain a little puzzled on the UK theme,unless you genuinely love something about UK boats that isn't in boats from abroad-and here I do make the assumption it is the boat not patriotism.Yet even within UK boats ,they have their own style....Having said that, I have not found a single boat that I would aspire to own that did not come from Scandinavia...!
 
gjgm said:
JFM..I still remain a little puzzled on the UK theme,unless you genuinely love something about UK boats that isn't in boats from abroad-and here I do make the assumption it is the boat not patriotism.Yet even within UK boats ,they have their own style....Having said that, I have not found a single boat that I would aspire to own that did not come from Scandinavia...!
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If buying a boat to keep in UK and sell on in UK, most people prefer FairPrinSeekSEaline. The used market for Azimut Ferretti Astondoa RodmanMuse et al is much thinner

If buying a big semi custom involving factory visits, it's easier to deal with in UK with drawings in EN

For all size purchases, currency FX may play a part, making GBP boats more attractive to GBP buyers in certain scenarios

I take your point that a UK buyer can buy an IT boat or a Scandi boat, and vice versa, but there is a chunk of the UK buyer population who prefer UK boats, and therefore the duopoly benefits the 2 builders more than the customer imho
 
Is there anything in the current Ferreti line up -San Lorenzo -Aprea Mare line up ( your mooring ) cannot fit .
That you would would fancy ?
Assuming they can meet your not unreasonable semi custom spec .
There's a 7 am to from Gatwick /Stanstead to Naples .Aprea Mare are nice people to deal with it run by a owner / occupier
Who bought it back off Ferreti Incidentally -deal directly with the factory owner passionate about boats .
.Real craftsmen .
Med home port means you can be brave and look at Italy ?
 
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