Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Spent the day at the New England Boat Show at the new Boston
Convention Center - very interesting.

In general, the mood among the exhibitors is - well, no other way to
put it - depressed. A lot of the sales people were just standing
around looking bored most of the day and any time you entered a
display area and showed some sort of interest in a boat, you had three
people hanging off you discussing this and that about the boat asking
questions and making discount pitches if the boat was bought at the
show. Pricing was also a surprise - a lot of boats were deeply
discounted off of list which I haven't seen in quite a while - I'm
talking anywhere from $10K to in one case, almost $20K. One dealer
had some left over inventory that, thinking about it, must have been
priced below cost.

One of the dealers I work for with on-the-water training - small boat
division - told me that the New York show was a disaster and
Providence was an unmitigated disaster in terms of sales - never mind
interest. He said it was pretty much across the board when discussing
it with his peers in the business.

One of the exhibitors that I know from Rhode Island who does a lot of
retrofitting and fabrication said his business was down almost 50% - I
can't vouch for that personally, but I've known him for a long time
and he's not known for exaggeration. He said he's hanging on with
service and repair which is holding up the rest of the business.

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.


Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?





--
George W. Bush - the 43rd Best President Ever!