wrote in message
ps.com...
...
Yes, stop patronizing West Marine. They've turned into a rip-off
operation ...

They've certainly taken a turn for the worse. I am thinking of going
to the dark side and adding a wind generator or two to the boat and
find the Air-X listed in West's 2007 catalog at $1050 but msrp is $850
and discounts below that are easy to come by. I wish this was an
anomaly, but West seems to have decided that they are a premium store
and their catalog prices look to reflect that. Oddly enough, I used
to feel that I got superior service at West, but over the last five
years the service has gotten much worse, the selection of serious
cruising gear has gotten thinner and the prices have gone from
discount to retail plus 20%. For me they have gone from fist choice
to last resort and have lost thousands of dollars of my business.

-- Tom.


In our local store sometime in January they were doing a customer
survey. They had this honey asking questions about West, the service,
the merchandise, etc. The nice lady said I was the first sailboater she
had interviewed and it was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. She gave me
a ten dollar gift certificate for my trouble but when I checked the fine
print it said I had to spend fifty dollars to get it. When you spend
fifty dollars at West and you can get the same thing at Boater's world
for 40 then it's no gift certificate at all.

Anyway, from the questions and her surprise at interviewing a sailboater
I came to the conclusion that they were going to become just another
motorboat place catering to rich fools with more money than sense. I've
already noticed they have been whittling away at sailboat items. West is
on a serious downhill slide and that's a fact.

Here's another example. A couple of times I asked at the customer
service desk for an accessory for a GPS they sell. Little things like a
cigarette lighter/NMEA chord and they came right out and told me I'd be
better off ordering it myself on the Internet. I wanted to buy a new
head but I needed the 90 degree outlet elbow. They said they only came
with the straight one. I said not true, I'd seen them advertised with
the 90 degree as an option. They reluctantly looked it up and finally
found it but it wasn't in bold print so they said they didn't stock it.
I asked them to order it and they said special orders would be about
double the cost and would take a couple weeks. I told them to go ****
themselves. I got the head from a local marine place that doesn't stock
much but does special orders. Even with shipping it was 20 bucks cheaper
than at West . It took two days to ship the same head with the 90 degree
bend outlet at no extra cost.

West is a rip off. They've forgotten on which side their bread is
buttered.

Wilbur Hubbard