Setting up a boating business

[benjenbav]

I think the worst thing about boats is the ergonomic interface with the controls. Look at a £3m m/y and you will see a mickey mouse steering wheel which Mercedes Benz designers would herniate themselves laughing about and it's backed up by aftermarket units dotted around like an '06 Clio modded for a burn-up round the car park in Tesco, Swindon.

It's probably too big an ask to make a modular console which keeps everyone happy and glass is at least making these monstrosities somewhat easier on the eye. But there must be a market for a car style steering wheel with stalk or wheel-based controls.

 

[jrudge]

Or just focus on what every one else is selling, but rely on low overhead to be more price competitive. This is pretty much the model of many eBay sellers. He is selling for £10, I sell for £9 so people by mine. Snag of course is someone else comes in at £8.50!

This model maybe open to criticism, but the channel ( eBay) only costs when you sell something and if you choose a monoline you might do ok.

However ... if adopting this model you may as well aim at the mass consumer market rather than the small market that is boating.

People on here trend to praise service ( ASAP, Boats.co.uk etc) more than they do price. They are not price insensitive but service matters.

If your product is unique ( JFMs unbreakable glasses etc) than all good, but if not it is far harder.

The mass market end of boating is probably things like fenders, rope, cleaning products, simple electronics ( radios?), LED lights, anodes - i.e. the stuff pretty much any boat owner needs / buys. This market is probably important as if you go more esoteric you will need more marketing as less people are looking for it which does not square with a small party time business not holding much stock!

 

[Whitelighter]

I lost a lot of money setting up a boat business in 2000.

I was foolish to think I could make a living selling new boats - I couldn't.

Ooh you and me are members of the same club!

Is there a club tie I should know about....

 

[Sandy Bottom]

Having owned a boatyard, a brokerage and a chandlery - I can only say that there are far easier ways of making money! :encouragement:

Ps. I have a mate who still turns over £1M+ in chandlery - the business doesn't even make £100k net profit.

 

[Whitelighter]

Having owned a boatyard, a brokerage and a chandlery - I can only say that there are far easier ways of making money! :encouragement:

Ps. I have a mate who still turns over £1M+ in chandlery - the business doesn't even make £100k net profit.

If it made a 10% margin that would be pretty solid

 

[Trundlebug]

One thing that strikes me is that full advantage hasn't been taken of the slimness of surface mounted LED's in lighting design.

Have a look at any LED lighting designs for boats or caravans etc and you'll find recessed designs that require large holes to be drilled in the headlining and were clearly designed for halogens originally. They require quite a bit of space behind them.
All the surface mounted designs seem to be stuck in the dark ages, they're mostly at least 50mm deep (if not more).
Yet SMD's are only around 5mm thick, and I'm amazed lighting manufacturers haven't made use of this in coming up with slimline, sleek, modern and attractive lighting designs that are surface mounted but don't protrude much more than current recessed designs.
Surface mounted shouldn't mean "I want something that sticks out like a wart"
Quicker to fit, both in OEM and aftermarket, and more versatile for installations that don't have huge depth behind them to enable recessed fittings.

I've also noticed very few switched lights these days, it was quite a problem when I was looking.
The other thing that was hard to obtain were red / white lights in the same fitting, for night operation.
Managed to get some in the end, but had to source them from the States and paid more for the shipping than the product...

 

[Sandy Bottom]

If it made a 10% margin that would be pretty solid

He has £1m+ tied up in stock - and makes about 8-9% net. Luckily he owns the premises and doesn't need to borrow money for stock.

On those figures the OP, in order to make £20kpa on a one day week would need to go some in general chandlery!

JFM should be listened to, a niche product is required, and preferably marketable to customers other than the Marine market as well.

 

[prv]

One thing that strikes me is that full advantage hasn't been taken of the slimness of surface mounted LED's in lighting design.

Light fittings do seem to be an area with some potential (no idea if it's a viable business though). I've basically had to manufacture them myself for both boats as I couldn't find anything that worked. There were some reasonable looking ones that required lots of depth behind the headlining, which I don't have, and all the surface-mount ones were butt-ugly.

Pete

 

[Mike k]

coincidentally Petem see this:

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?427773-Using-a-Strut-Pro

 

[jfm]

Lighting is a big thing and I thought about including it in my fist reply to Pete's question. I think it is too tough right now though, because joe Public isn't ready for it. All high end stuff (buildings and boats) these days has serious lighting design, but Joe Public still thinks a pendant light hanging from the middle of the ceiling is ok. LED hasn't made things cheaper to buy; it has opened up a whole new thing that creates beauty but is expensive to buy. Joe Public still thinks light is light, so gets something basic and cheap.

So I sort of think there should be a market for LED lighting on boats, but I wouldn't go there right now because people will still post on PBO etc that anyone paying £20 is crazy because they got one for £3 of eBay or bedazzled. You will get nowhere telling them that they should be spending £100 mrsp per light fitting to get proper quality.

Plus, there are plenty of players already in both cheap £1 Chinese LED hideous lights and in high end lighting. AND you'd spend loads of time quoting, then people would say no.

So I didn't put this on my list to Petem's question!

 

[chrishelen]

If I wanted to set up a boating business in my spare time, how easy would it be?

I assume that importing a product and selling it to the trade / retail market in the UK is a viable option. Space to keep a modest quantity of stock and shipping wouldn't be an issue as I have friends that could do this for me. IT (web, eCommerce, stock control, pay per click advertising, etc) wouldn't be an issue, nor would book keeping as I could do all of these myself.

I could probably devote one working day a week to the venture. I wouldn't want to fork out a load of cash up front, but equally wouldn't need to draw from the business until it was established. Target earnings would be £20k per annum after a year or so.

So what would be the biggest challenges? Locating a suitable product would be one I guess. Sales and marketing aren't a great strength of mine although pitching a product to buyers wouldn't phase me.

Any thoughts? Am I being deluded!?

Pete

May I suggest that one day a week devoted to starting a business might lead you to losing your stake, thereby failing miserably.

 

[prv]

May I suggest that one day a week devoted to starting a business might lead you to losing your stake, thereby failing miserably.

Well, it does depend what business. My manager at work used to work here four days a week and teach guitar lessons on the fifth. That was a nice little business that ticked along on one day a week, though I've no idea what it earned him.

Pete

 

[Trundlebug]

Lighting is a big thing and I thought about including it in my fist reply to Pete's question. I think it is too tough right now though, because joe Public isn't ready for it. All high end stuff (buildings and boats) these days has serious lighting design, but Joe Public still thinks a pendant light hanging from the middle of the ceiling is ok. LED hasn't made things cheaper to buy; it has opened up a whole new thing that creates beauty but is expensive to buy. Joe Public still thinks light is light, so gets something basic and cheap.

So I sort of think there should be a market for LED lighting on boats, but I wouldn't go there right now because people will still post on PBO etc that anyone paying £20 is crazy because they got one for £3 of eBay or bedazzled. You will get nowhere telling them that they should be spending £100 mrsp per light fitting to get proper quality.

Plus, there are plenty of players already in both cheap £1 Chinese LED hideous lights and in high end lighting. AND you'd spend loads of time quoting, then people would say no.

So I didn't put this on my list to Petem's question!

I understand your thinking but still believe there's a huge gap in the market.
Even the high end products haven't made the most of the advantages LED has to offer.
They're only high end in as far as quality materials and components - but the designs are still based on tungsten filament thinking IMO.

I spent over five years looking out for suitable lights for the boat, thinking "Someone must be working on this, it's only a matter of time before something becomes available" but as always ended up with a bit of a compromise out of impatience / frustration, although I'm happy enough with the result. I finally fitted them over the winter.

During that extended time I seriously thought a few times there is a real business opportunity out there for some stylish LED lights which are designed with LED's in mind from the outset. They present so many opportunities because they're so compact, yet no-one takes advantage of this except in light strips etc which are designed to be hidden!

(Thread drift, apologies) I read the other day that the first Graphene light bulb was demonstrated at Manchester University last week.
Although it looked like a standard GLS bulb, they will be much cheaper to make than LED's and the efficiency improvement will be in another league again from LED. Don't you just love new technology.

 

[dkm]

The reason swindeleries carry so many products is because there is not enough margin across 1 or a few products. To be successful you need a fantastic product that meets a high unmet need ie unique and be prepared to spend time and £'s marketing it , doubtful if this could be done 1 day a week. If successful you need to raise barriers to market entry which is extremely ambitious for a 1 man band working 1 day a week. Do lots of market research first and don't talk to friends who wil tell you. What you want to hear

 

[wakeup]

I understand your thinking but still believe there's a huge gap in the market.
Even the high end products haven't made the most of the advantages LED has to offer.
They're only high end in as far as quality materials and components - but the designs are still based on tungsten filament thinking IMO.

I spent over five years looking out for suitable lights for the boat, thinking "Someone must be working on this, it's only a matter of time before something becomes available" but as always ended up with a bit of a compromise out of impatience / frustration, although I'm happy enough with the result. I finally fitted them over the winter.

During that extended time I seriously thought a few times there is a real business opportunity out there for some stylish LED lights which are designed with LED's in mind from the outset. They present so many opportunities because they're so compact, yet no-one takes advantage of this except in light strips etc which are designed to be hidden!

(Thread drift, apologies) I read the other day that the first Graphene light bulb was demonstrated at Manchester University last week.
Although it looked like a standard GLS bulb, they will be much cheaper to make than LED's and the efficiency improvement will be in another league again from LED. Don't you just love new technology.

Gap in the market may be perceived to be huge, but there is no market in the gap I am afraid. I am aware of many LED lighting companies that have tried and failed in this space already. The large incumbents all have an LED product now, but many boat builders fail to choose them for their boats. It is one of the last items on the BoM of a boat to be installed and one of the easiest to swap out for a massively cheaper halogen alternative.

 

[jfm]

Dead right Wakeup. I blame joe Public though, because he is prepared to accept cheap lighting and hasn't woken up to the fact that lighting of living spaces is a whole new world from what it was 10 years ago. It's not about changing the light source from a filament to an LED; rather it is a whole new approach to the design of the fixture, what it reflects off, and the spectrum composition of the light itself (CRI). That just hasn't sunk in with Joe and he thinks a good LED is a warm white one (ffs). So he is happy that SunFairPrin fit £10 LED downlighters not £80ers, and up to an including 2013 model year he was happy that Princess were fitting £5 halogens to £2m+ boats. What I'm saying is that the BoM thing you describe happens because customers tolerate it

There ought to be a business rectifying this, but Petem you'd have to be brave selling something to Joe Public that he doesn't think he needs!

 

[petem]

There ought to be a business rectifying this, but Petem you'd have to be brave selling something to Joe Public that he doesn't think he needs!

IMHO there's a halogen to LED revolution gaining momentum (no **** Sherlock you may say! Even us people in the sticks are starting to talk about replacing all their GU10's at home with LED's so surely it won't be long before everyday boaters look at ways of replacing their halogens with LED, either by utilising their existing fittings or purchasing new? A well designed web site could certainly help them achieve this. From a personal perspective, this is a topic that I know zilch about (unless you could a Physics O level in 1982) so I'm afraid the learning curve would be too steep for me to offer any kind of technical support.

 

[prv]

surely it won't be long before everyday boaters look at ways of replacing their halogens with LED

Maybe motorboatalists are behind the curve on this, if they have oodles of power from their great big engines. But in the sailing world at least, people have been fitting replacement LEDs very happily for years.

The problem is, as JFM says, they're not very picky about what they fit, and generally go for the cheapest available. You're not going to successfully compete with Chinese imports via eBay.

Pete

 

[jfm]

Aaargh, no, it doesn't work to replace the halogen bulb with an LED one. Yet that's what joe Public is gonna do for a while, not buy new fixtures. The bulb swap out market is where the ebay sellers and Bedazzled websites are at and you don't want to get into that price war game searching for ever cheaper and crummier Chinese swap-out bulbs. New fixtures and high CRI is what people ought to want, but don't know about or want to pay for. Stay away from it all!

 

[Ripster]

May I suggest that one day a week devoted to starting a business might lead you to losing your stake, thereby failing miserably.

+1. That would be my opinion too. Be prepared to put many hours in (inc evenings and WE's) and take nothing out for two years bar some basic expenses. You will likely need every penny earned for reinvestment into growth. If you last past this, then you should be able to start paying yourself something and build up some worth (otherwise why go on!). The more uniqueness and exclusivity you can achieve in your chosen target market the easier it will be. All IMO of course