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Woodburner View Drop Down
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Posts: 332 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Woodburner Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Bewl Valley
    Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 11:48am
Originally posted by Peaky

What's a vertical model?
RS maybe don't have much trouble selling boats (?), but this way they could flog them on at three years old for, what, 60%. Gets boats out there in an affordable way.

Manufacturer straight to consumer with all profit taken within the organisation, which is often the case with the marine business from Ovingtons down, but in RS's case, both RS & LDC (Racing Sailboats formerly of Battersea and LDC formerly of Hither Green London) effectively merged when LDC bought RS and the resulting mailing list was used to good effect in the traditional reatil method of buying, then marking up.

So a margin was established, it was then a no brainer to go direct to a builder rather than buy someone elses product, mark it up and move it on.

The next step had the volumes been greater, would be to manufacture in house rather than contract out, but the market is much to fickle for that. As it is, they assemble.


I have a plan to compete with this model, offered it to folk who could use it, but they are disinterested in building businesses rather than enjoying the sport, which is fine, each to his own, but all the time that is the way of things, cookies are going to crumble and RS will laugh all the way to the bank. The sport will remain pricey and inaccessible.

If you think about it in the way we did as windsurfing distributors back in the day, a portion of your margin must go to broadening the base of the sport, so instead of selling revolutionary new boats to the already converted. They should be used as marketing tools to introduce newcomers, packaged maybe with a course of lessons, sold direct to none sailors as the break through sailing experience of the new millenium, financed, leased, easy pay, instant access, but no, nobody thinks that way.


Edited by Woodburner - 26 Jun 15 at 11:52am
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Caveman View Drop Down
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Posts: 64 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Caveman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 11:57am
Originally posted by Rupert

 
Pricing things by a very small amount of time is a trick used by people trying to make money out of people who can't really afford it. Old ladies giving £3 a month to various animal charities tugging at the heart strings on the telly, maybe. £4 a week for a family. £220 a year. That would double many clubs' membership fees. Many people aren't in a position to "find" extra money for what may be a hobby they only do on 1/2 a dozen times on sunny days per year.

Exactly right. An increase in the annual subs of £50 per member could easily result in lower revenues for the club  when fewer people decide to renew their memberships, drop their four times a year pastime or  join another club. In some ways it is similar to the Laffer Curve idea which suggests that once tax rates increase above a certain level, tax revenues don't rise but fall as people work less hard or find novel ways to avoid tax. 
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kneewrecker View Drop Down
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Posts: 1586 		Post Options Post Options   Quote kneewrecker Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 12:03pm
that's not my understanding vertical markets, which are specific products for specific buying groups, e.g. a car part for hybrid engines, or a software suite for sailing club memberships.... RS cover multiple areas of the dinghy market now- so much so, that I bet 'Racing Sailboats' constitutes significantly less of their sales profile than it used to: training centres, instituitional buyers and recreational sailors being very active for these guys today; not to mention the youth boats- the Tera and Feva, which are big sellers apparently, and not always for active racing only.  They've even sold Naish paddleboards and there's a definite aroma of some tie-up / partnership with magic marine going on... which I'd say is as horizontal an approach as you could take in the dinghy industry.  

 You've also described direct to market, rather than Vertical imho, which RS isn't either:

1) RS outsource production, a customer never bought an RMW 'RS' 600 anymore than you and I bought a CMI 100, or whoever the Aerospace lot are who make the Aero these days.  It's more complex than Fred in shed crowd funding for a proper workshop and production capability that he sells direct to his end user customers.  My opinion is RS have always been quite a bit more than the 'marketing company' they are often accused of being, but they don't manufacture directly to my knowledge (bar glueing sh*t that falls apart back together again of course) 

2) I think your brand history's out.  The RS stable was jointly grown by localised agents and dealers: Mike Saul, 'up north'; Lynall Boats here for the inbred hobbits; Greg at Purple for the Brummy derivatives and JP Watersports north of the Wall for Stugeon's Wildling race etc  (there were probably others, I just don't remember who they were).  Whether these guys were commissioned or resellers I don't know, either way, they were not direct employees, even if some found their way onto the stand at the dinghy exhibition in a logo'd polo shirt.

3) their more recent global expansion is through a distribution model, not direct engagement with local sales agents or employees.  This ensures not only boats are taken title to, but crucially spares and consumables are too, often warehoused for quick supply - including other retailers... which is of course where the money is when you're flogging cheaper options like the Aero and provides a vital service to the customers who'd otherwise face long lead times, usury postage  and import duties just to get a new sail or custom gooseneck from a single supply, direct-to-market source.

  


Edited by kneewrecker - 26 Jun 15 at 12:09pm
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JimC View Drop Down
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Posts: 6662 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 12:29pm
Originally posted by Caveman


Originally posted by Rupert

 Pricing things by a very small amount of time is a trick used by people trying to make money out of people who can't really afford it.

An increase in the annual subs of £50 per member could easily result in lower revenues for the club  when fewer people decide to renew their memberships, drop their four times a year pastime or  join another club.


Yep, and in this case it clearly has. I don't have loyalty to a club. Damn silly idea, I have loyalty to people, but its not long term. It can't be, be member of any club for a few years and you see many people move through as lives change. But what I certainly don't have loyalty to is an executive sitting in his office thinking that he can use that loyalty to rip off me and a whole bunch of other people by doubling our rent and giving nothing new in return. In those circumstances damn right I'd change clubs, and encourage my friends to do the same thing.

Don't get me started on customer service and how it seems to have gone by the board in many businesses these days, but as customers our number one power is to NOT COME BACK. I do hope that no group is foolish enough to try and start a new club at Bewl with the inflated rental, and that the lesson is taken on board by other landlords who might be thinking doubling the rent seems like a good idea, and they can reflect that a moderate income is better than no income.
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Posts: 240 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iiiiitick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 12:30pm
Originally posted by kneewrecker

tick - you're missing a trick, think how much fun it would be to have a private gig with someone like Florence Welch* (she's a local, sort of) at the Tattinger Launch Party.... we could even have fireworks to light up the lake and a burlesque dance troupe, everyone loves an awkward giggle at their expense.  

Tickets could be less than the hike in membership if dual-sponsored by the local Land Rover dealer, but please no 'Black Tie'... so passé, this is a red trouser event, classic chinos for those over 50.  

Perhaps Landy could get that girl who mothed across the channel to cut the red ribbon - she's one of their brand ambassadors or something isn't she?  I bet the RYA would love a hashtag or two on that.

The future of sailing is bright, we just need to open our wallets.

(* Okay Flo's a little extravagant, maybe we can find some washed up band like The Kooks or something)

Is that called marketing? Do we turn sailing into something like the Bahrain GP with flashing lights and artificial grass? Wow! Is that Florence (of and the machine?) I like that. But would all that water not get in the way of promotional stands? Get rid of it and just have computers with giant screens. I like my sailing with water and my motor racing with mud. I have been to Goodwood Revival a few times where Lord March busts a gut to keep it real and authentic while catering for you dosh heavy blokes. That is all about money however with mind numbing classic car values it has to be. Is it like that at CVRDA events? I like my club with it's crumbling slipway, nettles and no one to blame but our selves.

Just as a point of interest I think my father was Mayor of the Bewl area a few years ago. Dead now, I will try and ask my mother.
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kneewrecker View Drop Down
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Posts: 1586 		Post Options Post Options   Quote kneewrecker Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 12:34pm
Originally posted by iiiiitick

 

Is that called marketing? 

no, that comes later.  I know an agency in Balham who'd do it for a modest fee.
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 1:34pm
CVRDA is exactly like that. Champagne, models draped over the boats, corporate tents serving caviar and strawberries to Arab princes and their hangers on, not a speck of mud in sight. But then a classic Solo, say, has got to worth upwards of £200, so we are talking big money here.
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Posts: 91 		Post Options Post Options   Quote johnreekie1980 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 2:30pm
In any club there are those who wish to lend a hand and those who wish to pay to have a service provided. Those who are time rich and cash poor tend to go with the former and those of means who have limited time and some spare cash tend to go with the later.

The most sustainable way to run a sailing club is to have low overheads and a community of people who share a common club ethos. Making a club into a business tends to increase overheads, increase the debt burden and lower the willingness of the volunteers to help. Why would you clean the bogs, or cut the grass or service the rescue boats whilst the manager of the club who is being paid by you chats to the members.
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Posts: 328 		Post Options Post Options   Quote NickM Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 2:45pm
Two of BVSC's more interesting edicts:

- If you did not want to do a duty you could pay a premium and some no doubt willing volunteer would be found to do it for you.
- If you did not keep the grass around your boat parking plot down by date X, you would be sent quite a big invoice for the strimmer man to come and do it for you.
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Posts: 18 		Post Options Post Options   Quote BVS Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 15 at 3:03pm

You could also reduce your subs by performing more duties I believe.

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