What's in a name - boats.co.uk

-1

Completely disagree.

37 years building up a great reputation and then they change the name.

I am no marketing guru, perhaps some will come on here and tell me I am wrong, but to me this seems like a stupid move.
 
PEJ said:
-1

Completely disagree.

37 years building up a great reputation and then they change the name.

I am no marketing guru, perhaps some will come on here and tell me I am wrong, but to me this seems like a stupid move.
Click to expand...

It's a win, win for EBY...
Redirects and outreach will inform the loyal base who will have no problem with the nomenclature but more importantly the confidence and visibility they will realise from the new name will open up a whole new seam of traffic

i know it's very wrong to say this but the EBY handle is evocative of a bunch of Essex wide boys who sell a few boats. The broader untapped market place is what they are after and I take my hat off to them for recognising the potential benefits.

Plus, let's just say that they want to expand geographically or even sell up, with the previous name that would have been a problem, and I am speaking from experience! :)
 
Wow, what a difficult one.

"Essex Boatyards" does paint a somewhat shady image, the word "Essex" is sadly not a byword for quality, integrity or reliability. It also gives a geographic tether to a business which has a significant operation in Southampton.

Boats.co.uk sounds like an anonymous internet boat listing portal and the website does little to persuade you otherwise. The problem is you can't lose the ".co.uk". We're going to see "Boats" doesn't really work - I know you're looking at boats this weekend, but where are you going to see them?

The obvious solution was E-Boatyards.co.uk but they presumably want to try and exploit the SEO love from the word Boat.

Ultimately it depends on what they are looking to achieve. A solid main dealer brand image or a classifieds for boats.

Henry :)
 
henryf said:
Boats.co.uk sounds like an anonymous internet boat listing portal
Click to expand...

+lots

As someone who'd never heard of Essex Boatyards before or knew that they'd changed their name, perhaps I'm in a good position to comment. Yes, I can see the problems with Essex Boatyards and that it might be worth changing, but "Boats.co.uk" exchanges one set of problems for another. It gives the impression of an entirely virtual "business" that adds zero value and probably just screen-scrapes other people's websites and then puts ads round the result. Like all those "local business directories" you get in search results if you search for a local shop that doesn't have a big web presence.

I think they'd have done better to choose a respectable-sounding non-geographic name - maybe the proprietor's surname if it's something like "Richardson" rather than something like "Boggis", or otherwise just make something up.

Pete
 
Barkes Boats - trouble is that sounds like a thames river cruising company!

I don't think there is an answer here - some people will like it, some won't.

Essex have an office Southampton, Mallorca and Spain - so Essex does not work well. But Carphone Warehouse ---- don't sell car phones.... so who knows.
 
PEJ said:
-1

Completely disagree.

37 years building up a great reputation and then they change the name.

I am no marketing guru, perhaps some will come on here and tell me I am wrong, but to me this seems like a stupid move.
Click to expand...

Completely agree. Seems like a really stupid move.
 
PEJ said:
-1
37 years building up a great reputation and then they change the name.
Click to expand...
I can't understand the logic of it either especially when the domain name alone cost £200k according to this month's MBY. You spend 37yrs building up a brand and then chuck it away. I don't see that the brand Essex Boatyards had any negative connotations especially since it was better known as EBY anyway. Also £200k is probably just the start of the expenses because all their brochures, promo material, advertising, stationery and website will have to be changed too, not to mention the additional marketing costs of publicising the change. Still I expect there is some kind of strategy behind it but it does rather sound like they've made the mistake of letting a brand consultant through the front door which is never a good idea;)
 
PEJ said:
-1

Completely disagree.

37 years building up a great reputation and then they change the name.

I am no marketing guru, perhaps some will come on here and tell me I am wrong, but to me this seems like a stupid move.
Click to expand...

+1

as Henry said, Boats.co.uk just sounds like a search portal. In my view it sounds like a company run from a small office with lots of servers & no premises to visit - Essex Boatyards sounds much more of a physical place.. Just IMO...
 
Interesting points of view and ultimately the proof of the pudding.....

I do think that as one of the uk's larger brokerages and with the very strong reputation they enjoy that they must be very frustrated with page 2 rankings for The boats for sale term. When you look at the page one competition they are up against the aggregate sites with keep it simple url's and that must be a driver...while url structure has become less important it still plays a large part.

Do they sound like a listing site now? We perhaps they do but considering the Fairline sales figures for last year and the diminishing returns on new stock sales, perhaps a two tier approach to listings would not be such a bad idea...who knows where they are heading with this?

I will watch with interest but for sure, the name change would not put me off using their services..
 
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Firefly625 said:
as Henry said, Boats.co.uk just sounds like a search portal.
Click to expand...

That is true... and probably why the name is well worth £200k. The search procedure is extremely important in the early stage of a boat search. Usually when you search for a brand or boat type... or even a specific model.... you get a list of portal or directories - some of them frankly far from user-friendly; hence the portal step of a search function as a filter. People are used to this 2 step process.... first you go to a portal, from there you follow a link... and then you can contact the seller (which can also be a private seller). Essex Boatyards will gain a significant advantage if they can position boats.co.uk so it appear among the portals on first search.... people can skip a step so to speak and jump directly to someone actually selling what they have an interest in. I believe it's a very strong name - expensive, but will be well worth it if they also invest in it in the long run. In 5 years this domain name will (can) have higher recognition value than Essex Boatyards or EBY ever could get.
 
I would have saved £200K and purchased www.boat-sales.global for £55 pa. Then spend some of the £200K on SEO / Adwords campaign over several years.

Fair play to them though, if they can afford that for domain name they must be doing something right.

Anders
 
I agree neither the words 'Essex' or 'Boatyards' conveyed what EBY are about so a change was wise.

But if my core business was selling Fairlines I'd want to have 'fairline' in my domain name, perhaps something like "Fairline Yacht Sales", "Fairline Approved" or "Fairline Brokerage".

Anyhow, what they really need is a high class domain like "monacoboatshow.com" (no reasonable offer refused)!
 
U4 said:
In a slightly strange move IMO, they have announced the 200k price tag on their website.
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One assumes that if they've spent the past 10 years trying to but it they are hardly concerned about selling it!

Anyhow, great to see them investing in their business and I hope they do well out of it.
 
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Personally I think it is a good call and it what they are all about - EBY is far more than Fairline Essex or Southampton.

If you remember the article that was done about them a few years ago, they sell a wide range of boats from 15 foot upwards and usually in this market own the majority of their stock, so for new comers boats.co.uk is far clearer and doesn't have the negative 'Essex' connotations.

Good luck to them, they are a nice genuine people that deserve to do well.

-Andrew
 
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EBY seems to have a good reputation, especially with people who matters... people who can afford new boats and is willing and able to pay for the quality of service EBY delivers.

Boats.co.uk sounds like the UK part of boats. com, where people expect to find boats from across the market, not just from one vendor. As such, people may or may not browse - but they may feel cheated. As an analogy, imagine going to movies.co.uk and only seeing Disney movies at one location only. Furthermore, it puts the brand on a level with just about any other business out there - imagine Harrods becoming shop.co.uk or Ferrari becoming cars.co.uk... quality brands and generic domains do not mix very well - different kinds of people are attracted to each.

Despite their efforts to convince me, boats.co.uk does not represent, to me, the service levels that I associated with EBY and I sincerely hope it doesn't negatively impact the manufacturers e.g. Fairline that they represent.
 
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petem said:
One assumes that if they've spent the past 10 years trying to but it they are hardly concerned about selling it!

Anyhow, great to see them investing in their business and I hope they do well out of it.
Click to expand...

I just thought that announcing how much the domain had cost was a strange thing to do, nothing to do with them selling it.
 
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