Why would anyone want to try? Who would want to start a biz to cater to whiney, spoiled middle aged cry babies that expect to get what they pay for and actually complain when they don't!!

LMAO.....Good One GINO!!

LMAO

You purchased that book yet Gino and started her obedience training?

If I remember correctly Fred was buying in pretty large quantites. He told me he had Hundreds of Guages....in stock, a **** load of CMI headers and a ton of those damn steering wheels. With that type of purchase power isn't feasable that he could pass on his savings to the customer and turn a dime and as a result "under cut" the comp. It's my understanding Fred just forgot to pay the manufactores.(you know how that happens every once and awhile)

The bitterness of poor service is still there long after the sweetness of low prices are gone.

Rumrunner >> quote>>> "As a manufacture you can take certain policies, and take certain precautions. Where I worked before we would have the actual owners sign "personal" guarantees that items would be paid for if the business went broke."

Thus.. the corporate umbrella.

IMO, there are a lot better and easier ways to make money with the amount of capitol you would need to get started. The marine business just has too many custom parts and variations of those custom parts.

You would pretty much need a half milion dollars worth of inventory just sitting there. If you sell on average 10-20% over cost, you would probably clear 5% after expenses.

It would be pretty easy to make more than 5% on your half million somewhere else.

I don't know the exact numbers of course, but this seems realistic.

Maybe Fred was doing this...... selling product "A", "B" and "C" at cost because they are high moving items. That builds your customer base and popularity up quickly and undercuts the competition. Then your profit is made from products "D" through "Z". Sure it pisses off the competition but...... Business is business.

I've been in and out and around the marine business since 1980.

The oldest adage is "Do you want to make a million dollars in the boat business?....start with 2 million.

There probably isn't an industry that this hasn't been tried in. In the end, virtually everyone gets hurt. The manufacturers get margins cut. The competition loses sales. The discounter ends up with a zero-net-margin business that fails and while some people got some deals, they got no service or support so who's the big winner here? Nobody.

The WalMart model works for plastic bowls, cheap clothing and the like. Low-cost goods that require no pre-sale, post sale or warranty support. Wal Mart changes oil, not engines. And, for good reason. They're skimming the cream.