(no subject)

Doug wrote:



>>>>>>>>>>>>Probably the Mariner
Express is an example of a sea kayak with the best seakindly attributes
possible, but not as good in rock gardens as the Coaster and not as able to
deliver as the Mariner II for distance travel, yet nevertheless a nice
compromise in length, gear capacity, stability, responsive maneuverability,
and yes, seakindlyness.
I'm surprised more paddlers didn't pick up on this model, though I don't
have the sales figures. I'm hoping to try one out one day now that I
probably can't fit an Elan. Matt and Cam used to advertize that their kayaks
were only for the few - implying only the discriminating paddler need apply.
As not all their models caught on worldwide, either Matt and Cam struck a
brilliant marketing campaign slogan with those adds or the designs really
didn't deliver and therefore only a few paddlers bought in. There is
certainly enough evidence these days from paddlers thrice or more removed
from directly dealing with the Broze brothers, that we know there is truth
to the claims of Mariner performance. So perhaps there was some other issue
(lack of bulkheads or something, I don't know). <<<<<<<<<


Thank you Doug. Why didn't you say these nice things when we were still in
business? Maybe we would still be in business.

I'm joking. We retired because we needed the rest and could afford to do so.



We sold about as many kayaks as we could handle while running a store (and
usually doing most of the finishing work like installing seats and decklines
ourselves, often late at night. I used to joke that we were our own
kayakmaker's late night elves. Until the Dot.com and Boeing busts of the early
2000's we hardly had time for a vacation. To sell more kayaks we would have
had to sell wholesale (and therefore sell a whole lot more kayaks to make the
same income) and trust that dealers would do an adequate job of explaining the
kayaks to potential customers (when we already knew better that most
wouldn't). Because our kayaks were so different adequate representation wasn't
very likely except in a very few specialty shops.



During the early to mid-1980's some of our hull designs were sold wholesale by
our builder outside WA and OR. We received a small royalty that amounted to
about one eighth of what we would earn if we sold the kayak to that customer
directly. This arrangement also limited then number of kayaks that we could
sell ourselves, and delayed delivery to our own customers, because wholesale
kayaks were coming out of the same molds as the ones we sold direct. I brought
this up because I once was down in San Diego after kayaking in Baja (and maybe
picking up a trailer load of Seda kayaks on the way back). I went into a
sporting goods store and saw a Coaster among the kayaks that were for sale
there. I asked a clerk for their expert on kayaks and when he arrived I asked
him if he could tell me about the Coaster model they had. His response was:
"This kayak over here is better, its got a rudder."



But the last straw for us was the quality issues that were occurring with
kayaks sold wholesale that we never saw (but heard about later from the
customers that bought them at retail stores). Had we seen them, those kayaks
would have either been sold as cosmetic seconds or gone back to the builder
for repair or destruction had the problem been functional. When the kayaks
sold wholesale started having their cockpit rims fall out because of a change
the manufacturer did to our kayaks (after I specifically told him not to make
that change to our kayaks and that I wouldn't even consider making it until he
had at least a year of doing it with his own kayaks with absolutely no
problems. Well, none of the kayaks we received and sold had glued in coamings
but all the kayaks he made for wholesale (ours and his own) did. The debacle
ended up costing our hull builder more than $30,000, hurt our reputation as
well as his, and we ended all wholesale sales of our kayaks from then on. At
least our builder owned up to the problem and took responsibility for his
customer's kayak repairs. Some kayak companies solution to poor quality
construction was to blame their quality problems on "shipping damage". That
made shipping kayak an even bigger problem for every kayak dealer an even
bigger problem than it already was. All the more reason to sell locally. Until
business slowed way down after the Dot.com/Boeing bust (putting our major
Seattle competitor into bankruptcy) we rarely even accepted international
sales.



We lost a lot of sales because most of our models were not available with a
large bow hatch. So that helped keep sales down to more local customers we
could discuss the issues with (that were far easier to serve anyway) and to
customers expert enough or strong enough to resist the demands by the British
influenced governing bodies and kayak paddling groups and stores insistence
that it wasn't a sea kayak unless it had compartments (see the "Flotation"
manual on our website for a discussion). Later even a day hatch seemed
essential for a kayak sold in a retail store. Personally except for a few
(like on the latest Illusions) I think they are a huge waste of storage space.
If we weren't already selling more kayaks than we wanted to (and weren't then
yet ready to retire) we would have probably had to impose a bow hatch and all
its attendant problems (see the above mentioned "Flotation" manual) on our
customers. The only other reasonable choice to limit sales was to raise
prices. We had to do that several times during the boom 1990's to slow down
sales to levels we could handle (and operate on four to five hours of sleep a
night).



To get to more specifics about what Doug wondered about. The Coaster was our
best selling model (also the least expensive) until the new Elan model stole
some of its smaller paddler's wing (of that model's many market niches). To
think, Cam designed and built it just for himself and didn't care if it sold
to anyone else at all. He took the first (and only) Coaster to the ocean for
surfing instead of to the Sea Kayaking symposium at Port Townsend where I had
all our other kayaks available to demo. Once the Elan was out for smaller
paddlers (and those who liked low volume kayaks and could fit in it) the
Express became our best selling kayak.



We directed our advertising to serious paddlers or paddlers who would likely
become capable paddlers on the sea coast (where we liked to paddle). That's
who our kayaks were designed to appeal to (those few like ourselves who
paddled open coastlines) and once those expert paddlers became our
enthusiastic, but unpaid, sales force we didn't have to spend very much in
advertising either. We were doing well and were therefore free to make our
kayaks just how we wanted. This frustrated many who really liked how the
kayaks paddled but weren't able to stand up to the abuse they would take for
not having a bow bulkhead like a "real" sea kayak. They were not our kind of
customers anyway so better they buy someone else's kayak. Most owners, even
those who had been somewhat skeptical at first, learned to love how much
easier it was to load the kayak through the cockpit. We always tried to do
what was best for our customers (but didn't think they were always right about
what that was--but we were always willing to discuss it with them).



Some customers stayed away from the store because they knew we were
anti-rudder. We would have a rudder installed (priced at just our costs) on
any Mariner kayak but we would always try to get the customer to try the kayak
without the rudder first because they were designed to not need one. Since we
would get them a rudder later at the same cost if they wanted to add it they
had little to lose to try out the kayak for a few weeks (and become better
PADDLERS in the process) to see if they really needed one. Few customers
returned for the rudder. Maybe 5% had us install it from the start. While some
may have stayed away from our store because of our anti-rudder bias I don't
think it cost us as many customers as the lack of a bulkhead did. Again those
who felt they needed a rudder were not really the paddlers we wanted to sell
to anyway. We carried Nimbus Kayaks and thought they were very well built,
liked many of their designs, thpought they had little need for a rudder, but
did a better job with the their rudder set up than anybody else at the time
(later Feathercraft even changed their design to improve the rudder lift to
the way Nimbus was modifying their rudder).



I think that trying to best serve anyone who we talked to had a lot to do with
our success. Big corporations and big banks ought to dump the Harvard bottom
liners and give that philosophy a try for a change. It is much nicer to be
loved than hated, more profitable too in the long run.
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