West Marine Inventory

[Scott T-Bird]

Having a convenient store location is no longer convenient. There is nothing convenient about wandering into a local store and not finding anything that you need. Shopping has changed dramatically. We all research products on line. Recently, I bought an outboard motor from Defender. Their brick & mortar store is at least 200 miles away and I thought it would be an ok trip to pick it up there and do a little shopping. Best price, check. Manufacturer's rebate, check. FREE SHIPPING, double check! I ordered it on a Tuesday afternoon and it arrived at my garage door on Thursday BEFORE 10 am! I was leaving for the boat that afternoon and I figured I wouldn't see it until after the weekend. Pleasant surprise!

That's how retail works these days. There is a very good and well-stocked WM store in Brick, NJ, which is a fairly convenient location from my marina. I'm pretty sure they had the same outboard at very similar pricing. They still lost the sale. Perhaps they lost their reputation and I'm biased because of it. I think mostly it was the free shipping that Defender made known to me that triggered the sale. The rebate was a bonus I didn't expect and I marveled at the delivery schedule. Everything about the transaction reinforced my purchase decision.

BTW, I checked other local Mercury dealers in my area (there are numerous because of the small lakes around us) and the locals were at least $300 more expensive.

 

[Foswick]

I don't think they're dead yet. I was stuck in Tacoma for a couple of weeks making repairs. Package delivery wasn't really an option. Made several trips to the nearby West Marine. They had everything I needed that I expected them to have. Without them, plan B would have been a huge hassle and/or expensive.

 

[Stu Jackson]

I don't think they're dead yet. I was stuck in Tacoma for a couple of weeks making repairs. Package delivery wasn't really an option. Made several trips to the nearby West Marine. They had everything I needed that I expected them to have. Without them, plan B would have been a huge hassle and/or expensive.

Thanks for this. What it means to me is that there still are good WM stores, just a lot fewer good ones and it's a pleasure when you find one.
Like Scotty and and the rest of you, I do quality comparative pricing when purchasing almost anything. Yup, times change. I thought Bob Dylan covered all this in 1963, dontcha know?
When I moved to BC in 2016, WM still had a store in Victoria, but it closed soon after I moved here when they closed all their Canadian stores. So with the help of my friend (Hello Below here) I learned all about my local and national Canadian suppliers, and have used most of them at one time or another. And I visited the ones within reasonable distances. I LIKE real stores, but also like competitive prices. My marina used to have a great little chandlery, they could always "get it for you by next Tuesday," and often did. The greed of the marina operators drove them out when they raised rents and made their space into a useless and almost always empty "marina coffee house." Idiots.