Recommended Marine Suppliers

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Dave99

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OK I am on the hunt for some more recommended suppliers around the UK.

I want to make sure that we only work with companies which have been recommended.

So, I need some help! If you have had a job done on your boat recently and were pleased with the service or quality then please message me the details of who it was and what they did!
 
SOS Boat Services at Tewkesbury. Serviced my outdrives, and did some cosmetic work. Well known in the area and highly recommended. Works down to Portishead, and the Thames.
 
hang on a mo please.


Your website and company seems to be about providing the very information which you are seeking.

"In fact, our checks go further than those carried out by many of the larger marina chains, so you can be assured that the you are hiring an expert"

What's the basis for first part of this statement please ? Are your 'checks' based on information derived from this forum ? And am I mistaken in the belief that you are the contracting party with the 'expert' ?




"We don't charge boat owners to use our site. We take our fees from our registered suppliers, which enables us to request certain service standards from them. "

So the registered suppliers are going to offset the 'fees' against whom ? The boat owner, by any chance ?




Some flaws in the business model, somewhere. Up go the charges to the owners again. :(
 
I've had a quick look at the terms and conditions.

"We may update or change this agreement without notice"

Basically, that is illegal.
 
Mmm, they perhaps send the potential supplier an unsolicited invoice for the cost of being incuded in their directory. We've had them before now, I think they work on the basis that many will just pass the invoice to accounts for payment.
 
I'm sorry, but there are so many really cr-p boat service providers out there, some of whom I have been unlucky enough to meet, some of whom disguise their advertising with the occasional supposedly amusing post on here, that I think its about time there was a website like this. It may need some fine tuning but I think the idea is a good one.Perhaps it would be an idea to change it to a site where only recommended suppliers are allowed to advertise, so boat owners can contact suppliers themselves. Perhaps a lower profit but longer term business?
 
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Obviously there are forumites who come highly recommended, but perhaps being a tad parochial I recommend good marine people to the locals. I would not support any so called 'agency' who can only profit from the hard pressed boat owners.
 
Sara,

Thanks for your comments- our business model is based on the feedback which we take from boat owners and the feedback we take from marine service suppliers, so I really appreciate your concerns. One point though, I can assure you that nothing we do is illegal - I am sure my lawyers would have picked that up!

Our terms and conditions are fairly standard for the processes which take place although we are the only organisation to do act independently in the marine service industry.

We also already have many of the leading marine suppliers working in partnership with us and benefitting from our system, so much so that we are considering launching an offline version of our software to enable them to process all of their customers jobs with our system.

We earn our commission by driving business to those who provide customers with quality and outstanding customer service. It's a simple business model - after all we have bills to pay! We only invite recommended suppliers to work with us in order to ensure that we only work with people we trust.

In order for a supplier to join us they have to go through a number of checks. We validate their insurance; carry out bank level security checks on their address and company details and also check references with other marine businesses.

Thank you for your query about fees by the way. Your concern is valid as I am sure many will agree as they watch the cost of living going up and that is exactly why we have to justify our fees to suppliers. We've built our systems to not only make the whole process of hiring someone easy, but we have also made the process of administering a job easy too.

The technology we have built and invested in provides companies with a direct cost savings- we handle payment processing, electronic admin and invoicing. In fact, we have saved suppliers up to 40% by streamlining the processes and reducing the direct costs, advertising and marketing. We have also made it easy for them to give customers a high basic standard of communication and reporting.

So - you post a job and you receive a number of offers promoting a competitive market which, from my perspective, will lead to a decrease in prices for you the customer (and/or increases in quality) as opposed to your suggested increase in cost!


Having been on both sides of the fence as a boat owner and marine service provider in the past, I am pretty pleased with what we have come up with.

If you use it and still have feedback then please feel free to contact me directly, in fact I would love to hear what you think about the system.

Thanks,

Dave Hawkins
 
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Perhaps you need to read the terms and conditions of the forum.

You are promoting a commercial service and I think you will find that is against forum rules. The proper place to promote your service is to advertise it in the media.
 
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