Buying a boat directly from the dealer has a number of advantages, but the biggest one is availability. When the boating season is on, you don’t want to wait weeks and sometimes months for a custom order to come through. If you want a boat RIGHT NOW, buying from the showroom floor is the answer.
And the best dealerships know what most boaters in their region want. Joy Anderson from Anderson Marine near Nashville, Tenn., said, “Experienced dealers understand customer’s needs and wants. We order our boats to sell quickly for a reasonable price: on the longer boats we always add a double Bimini top. We also upgrade the trailers to swing-away tongues because those are so popular for storage.”
Mark Curry at Just 4 Fun Powersports in Havasu, Ariz., agreed. He said, “We have a good read on the market and we make sure our stock boats have what customers always ask for: upgraded stereos, vinyl flooring, and the largest engine that a model will take.”
Pro #2: Experience The Actual Boat
Another benefit to buying a stock boat is that you can walk through the actual boat you’re buying and see the amenities firsthand. It’s hard to buy a car without driving it first, and many people feel the same way about their boat. And sometimes, it’s just love at first sight: you or your spouse may walk into the showroom and exclaim: “That’s it! That’s our boat!”
Pro #3: Price Breaks
Dealerships are motivated to liquidate their stock, especially if it’s near the end of the boating season. You can often swoop in and make a great deal.
Mark said, “We have boats immediately available, and here in Havasu we boat year round. We’re motivated to give a break on the price of a stock boat because the longer it sits in our inventory, the more wear and tear it accumulates,” Mark said.
“During May through August, we have to sell what we have on the floor to make room for the next year’s models. Dealers create urgency for you to get a great deal on a stock boat so you can go boating ASAP,” Joy said.
Con #1 Settling For Near Perfect
There are drawbacks, though, to buying a boat that someone else has already ordered, even if it is the dealer. You often can’t get exactly what you want in terms of layout or amenities. But the deal breaker for many customers actually comes down to color. Multiple dealers said that the majority of their customers have pre-chosen their dream boat color, and they don’t want to budge on it.
“Normally the biggest objection people have to a stock boat is the color. If they have a blue truck, they want a blue boat,” Mark said. However, his dealership has found the ideal solution to simply add a vinyl wrap to the boat: “We started offering vinyl wraps. For just a little money, you can completely wrap the flat surface of the boat and get exactly the color that you want,” he said.
Another drawback is that stock boats can have costly options that you might not want or need. Watch out for dealerships who have equipped their stock boats with every upgrade possible, although the best dealerships won’t do this.
Tom Keith of Keith’s Marina in West Bend, Wisc., said, “We stock our boats with what customers want. We don’t just fill our boats with options to make the most money. As a large dealership, the last thing we want is for people to walk in and say, ‘That’s a beautiful boat but I don’t want those extra options.’”
If you know just what you want and you aren’t backing down for any pin stripe, glove box, or windshield curve, ordering a custom boat from the manufacturer is for you. Making the boat yours from the get-go is appealing for many reasons, and that’s why nearly 70 percent of new boat buyers will custom order their boats. By having a boat built just to your specifications, it’s going to be exactly what you want.
“The beautiful thing is that by ordering a boat, customers are able to customize colors, seating arrangements, accent colors, the trailer…the list is endless,” Joy said.
Mark added, “If the dealer doesn’t have the boat you want in inventory, custom ordering can get you the boat of your dreams.”
Pro #2: Only Pay For What You Need
When custom ordering, you can often save money by getting just what you’ll use and there’s no need to worry about expensive upgrades that don’t appeal to you. If your lake is small, you won’t need to max your horsepower, especially since nearly one-third of the boat’s cost is the engine.
“When you order you get your pick of colors and options, and you can even make a boat less expensive. In fact, a custom-ordered boat might be less expensive than a stock boat by an extreme amount,” Tom said.
Pro #3: Avoid The Fads
Dealers stock their boats with what’s popular, but if you’re a classic kind of person, maybe you don’t want to add on $2,000 in underwater lights like everyone else. And you don’t have to with a custom build. You can avoid the trendy options by putting just what you want on your boat.
Con #1: And Now…We Wait
The biggest drawback to the custom-ordered boat is of course, the wait. No matter how efficient factories have become, any boat is going to take at least six weeks and maybe up to two months or more to get to you.
“The first thing customers need to understand is timing. Depending on the industry, it can take up to 2-3 months to build your boat. Understand the urgency that you need to order at the boat show, even if it’s January and it seems far from boating season. Remember that every dealer around the country is having shows at the same time and manufacturers are going to be inundated with orders,” Joy said.
“The wait is a problem because it can be 8-10 weeks before the boat arrives,” said Mark. “And depending on when you order and where you live, your boat might arrive AFTER your boating season. If your boat is finished in November but your area gets cold in October, you’ll be waiting even longer to start boating.”
Many boaters do understand that time is of the essence.
Tom said, “If someone comes in looking for a boat from September to April, they know they can pick out what they want. But in July they just want to get on the water.”
Con #2: Pricing May Be Set
Custom-ordered boats may have set pricing, as compared to one the dealership is motivated to get off the sales floor. And if manufacturers have set national pricing to simplify the ordering process, the dealership may not be able to change that.
However, some dealerships can and will give you a price break on custom orders: “Customers can get the benefits of manufacturer rebates and incentives with motors. We can also incentivize customers to custom order their boat, since a price break doesn’t take away from our profit margin,” Joy said.
Be thoughtful of what amenities you need and don’t need, though, and that’s where a discussion with a sales person can help you make the best choices. A good sales team can walk you through what will be worth the cost according to what you’ll actually use.
“A lot of customers ask about a Porta Potti or a changing room,” Joy said. “But we try to explain that most lakes have restaurants and restrooms. And when we remind them that someone has to empty the Porta Potti they’re less inclined to buy one.”
Mark also had wonderful parting advice, “We’ve never had anyone say they wish they’d bought a smaller engine or a smaller boat. Size and horsepower matters, and once you buy it, you can’t change it out,” he said. So take that leap and have fun shopping!