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Cope and Mastercraft Split?


Lgndracer

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Veeeely intelelsting.........

I wonder what the real story is???

I would NOT doubt that MC asked for exclusive dealerships, but that would really hurt Copes. Why would MC ask their biggest dealer to go exclusive now...in this economy??? Just does not make sense.

Who can afford a $90,000.00 boat???

Pat

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Why would MC ask their biggest dealer to go exclusive now...in this economy???

Ego and desperation. Slumping sales causes companies to make rash decisions in an attempt to boost sales. Saw it multiple times in the bicycle industry with companies like Trek and Specilaized.

Edited by NorCaliBu
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Why would MC ask their biggest dealer to go exclusive now...in this economy???

Ego and desperation. Slumping sales causes companies to make rash decisions in an attempt to boost sales. Saw it multiple times in the bicycle industry with companies like Trek and Specilaized.

And the fact that they have a serious case of the b-uglies. That is definitely not a problem with the Bu's, 3 gelcoat patterns and almost unlimited color choices. Arguably MC has a reputation as a high end, quality boat, but man the newer designs lack style, they have gone off the deep end trying to be "cool".

Edited by TheBlackPearl
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Why would MC ask their biggest dealer to go exclusive now...in this economy???

Ego and desperation. Slumping sales causes companies to make rash decisions in an attempt to boost sales. Saw it multiple times in the bicycle industry with companies like Trek and Specilaized.

And the fact that they have a serious case of the b-uglies. That is definitely not a problem with the Bu's, 3 gelcoat patterns and almost unlimited color choices. Arguably MC has a reputation as a high end, quality boat, but man the newer designs lack style, they have gone off the deep end trying to be "cool".

My personal opinion from observation on WW and what I see in local lakes is that MC is targeting that under 30 crowd more so than other MFG's with their designs. The under 30 crowd for the most part is probably stretching for that 70K-90K boat vs. the over 30 crowd. With the dowturn in real estate in CA, FL, and other areas where MC has a lot of sales, it is only reasonable to see sales decline. What I don't understand is MC wanting everyone to go exclusive, are they afraid at side by side comparison?

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Why would MC ask their biggest dealer to go exclusive now...in this economy???

Ego and desperation. Slumping sales causes companies to make rash decisions in an attempt to boost sales. Saw it multiple times in the bicycle industry with companies like Trek and Specilaized.

And the fact that they have a serious case of the b-uglies. That is definitely not a problem with the Bu's, 3 gelcoat patterns and almost unlimited color choices. Arguably MC has a reputation as a high end, quality boat, but man the newer designs lack style, they have gone off the deep end trying to be "cool".

I agree if you are talking about the wake boats. However, I think the PS 197 is a sweet looking boat.

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I know MC switched dealers in Spokane, WA. Not sure why? The old dealer sold Skier's Choice, too. The new dealer is from Salt Lake, only sells MC.

MC paints a different picture:

Date: 2/26/08

Author: MasterCraft Press Release

Related Links:

MasterCraft Management Partners with New Owners

Vonore, TN - MasterCraft recently reported that it is once again experiencing a strong year, with growth in sales and market share. This announcement comes on the heels of MasterCraft learning it is also the recipient of several industry awards, including being recognized by renowned J.D. Power and Associates.

Overall MasterCraft has managed 19% revenue growth in the first half of its fiscal year, which ended December 31st, verses the same period last year. This is the 7th consecutive year of record breaking performance for the global leader in luxury performance towboats. “Despite difficult times in many segments of the economy, MasterCraft has been able to increase unit sales, market share, and earnings over last year,” said John Dorton, president and CEO of MasterCraft. “However this growth hasn’t been easy, especially amid the many challenges facing our industry. In fact, we have seen some of our traditionally strong domestic geographic regions struggle while others have shown impressive growth leaving our North American business somewhat flat. Nonetheless our investment in global initiatives is paying off as our international business continues double digit growth every year.”

Over the past month, MasterCraft has also earned three significant awards. Recently, at the Miami International Boat Show, JD Power & Associates acknowledged MasterCraft as being ranked “Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Ski and Wakeboard Boats in a Tie.” According to the J.D. Power and Associates’ study, MasterCraft was the sole company in the ski and wakeboard category with customer satisfaction improvement from the 2007 study.

Also at the Miami show, the NMMA and boats.com announced at the annual North American Marine Industry Web Award presentation that MasterCraft had won the Best Marine Site Overall, beating out nearly 100 entries. The Web Awards are designed to recognize companies that lead the North American marine industry's drive towards higher standards of excellence in website design and content.

Finally, East Tennessee APICS, the association for Operations Management, announced last week that MasterCraft Boat Company is the East Tennessee APICS Manufacturer of the Year for 2007. According APICS, MasterCraft's “lean manufacturing implementation is the best in the region” and MasterCraft provides superior product quality and customer service to their dealers.

In an effort to best sum up this momentum, John Dorton comments, “I believe we are winning the game right now because we are sticking to what has always made MasterCraft great - superior products and processes aimed at an exceptional buyer. Add in our leading dealer network, progressive sales and marketing, world-class manufacturing and information systems and of course the 600 dedicated staff members who put their heart and soul into every boat, it really should come as no surprise the industry and our consumers are responding.”

MasterCraft strives to deliver consumers the ultimate water sports experience by designing and building the world’s highest quality, best performing sports luxury boats in every significant inboard niche. Tours of MasterCraft’s world headquarters in Vonore, Tennessee are available Monday-Thursday from 2pm to 4pm.

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MC paints a different picture:

Vonore, TN - MasterCraft recently reported that it is once again experiencing a strong year, with growth in sales and market share...

:lol: They are masters of spin, I'll give them that. Yes.gif I have worked for companies like that. Be at a sales meeting being ripped for shallow growth numbers (or worse) and two days later an industry rag runs a story about the phenomenal growth brand X is seeing. :Doh:

When you make a lot of changes in your dealer network you do see decent numbers right up front, that's the new dealerships stocking up and if they're in a fresh market there would presumably be some pent up demand. If they were doing that well their largest dealer would not have been sitting on the load of dated inventory that they are/were. Their growth is not coming from US sales. No.gif Opening up foreign markets is very good for the bottom line that first year.

Edited by NorCaliBu
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:. If they were doing that well their largest dealer would not have been sitting on the load of inventory that they are/were. Their growth is not coming from US sales. No.gif Opening up foreign markets is very good for the bottom line that first year.

When I drove by last weekend the lot was full of MC

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MC paints a different picture:

Vonore, TN - MasterCraft recently reported that it is once again experiencing a strong year, with growth in sales and market share...

:lol: They are masters of spin, I'll give them that. Yes.gif I have worked for companies like that. Be at a sales meeting being ripped for shallow growth numbers (or worse) and two days later an industry rag runs a story about the phenomenal growth brand X is seeing. :Doh:

When you make a lot of changes in your dealer network you do see decent numbers right up front, that's the new dealerships stocking up and if they're in a fresh market there would presumably be some pent up demand. If they were doing that well their largest dealer would not have been sitting on the load of dated inventory that they are/were. Their growth is not coming from US sales. No.gif Opening up foreign markets is very good for the bottom line that first year.

I think your on the right track but what about this for making your #'s growing. Make all dealers buy X amount of boating in 06 then in 07 buy X + 10. :unsure: then you could say your company is growing even if the dealers are sitting on a boat load of stock. To see prof just look at the Copes web site for boat for sale and you will see a ton of 07.

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I spoke with some a sales guy at Nor Cal MC late last year and he said when they took over the dealer ship from Ski World they inherited a bunch of 06 boats. he said if it wasn't for the 06's that they could blow out, they would have had a really bad year.

Nor Cal MC in Pleasanton is an MC only dealer. However there sister store, RiverBoat Marine on the delta is a MC, Baja, Reinell, etc. dealer. So do they have to give up MC at the sister store as well?

I remember a few years back there were Honda only and Kawasaki only dealers. Now there are mega dealerships with several brands under one roof. Why the dealers couldn't make money on just one brand.

Now MC in there wisdom is hobbling there dealers. Not a good move IMO. The dealers ought be smart enough to know this is not a good move for them, and should gladly give up MC in lieu of another brand. I'm sure many would do well as a BU, Supra, Centurion and MB dealership.

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Veeeely intelelsting.........

I wonder what the real story is???

I would NOT doubt that MC asked for exclusive dealerships, but that would really hurt Copes. Why would MC ask their biggest dealer to go exclusive now...in this economy??? Just does not make sense.

Who can afford a $90,000.00 boat???

Pat

not sure about your neck of the woods,, but at the Indianapolis boat show the bu 23 and the x-30 were the same price with the 20k mc discount. i told the mc guy that id already bought a bu and he pretty much called bu everything but a solid boat.. lmao

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Spoke with my dealer yesterday, he works for Copes and yes it is true MC is leaving the store and Malibus are coming into the stores. In my case we had Premier Truck and Marine which sold Malibus and Copes which sold Mastercrafts. Both owned by Copes (Ultimate, whatever) Premier is closing their doors and moving over to Copes in Reno, Rocklin, and he said acouple other places but I didn't pay much attention past the first two. It was a business decision made by the owner their will be no screaming deals on the inventory of MC, the manufactorer will take them back and send them to other vendors. Projected date here to be complete is June. But their already moving boats over to Copes. Thumbup.gif

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Veeeely intelelsting.........

I wonder what the real story is???

I would NOT doubt that MC asked for exclusive dealerships, but that would really hurt Copes. Why would MC ask their biggest dealer to go exclusive now...in this economy??? Just does not make sense.

Who can afford a $90,000.00 boat???

Pat

not sure about your neck of the woods,, but at the Indianapolis boat show the bu 23 and the x-30 were the same price with the 20k mc discount. i told the mc guy that id already bought a bu and he pretty much called bu everything but a solid boat.. lmao

That 20k is not all up front, more like that buyers reward crap they try an push.

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Well here is what I know.

Copes has around 200 carry over 2007 Master Crafts. They have around 100 carry over 2007 Malibus. Who knows how many boats they have as carry overs from other manufactures.

Copes asked all of their manufactures to help by paying their flooring (loans for boats) for a period of time (not sure how long). All of their manufactures (business partners) agreed to this EXCEPT Master Craft. On top of this Master Craft still expects them to buy another 300 '2008 model year boats (no exception pretty much). To me this shows that Master Craft has no concern about the well being of their dealers; not even their largest one.

I was selling Master Crafts when they dropped the 2 local dealers here in Seattle and brought Cope in. It was at the end of 2001 and the beginning of the 2002 model year. This was at the height of the DOT COM bust and boat sales were in the toilet. Master Craft had both dealers (Doug's Boats and Gonnasons) put together business plans to show why they should be the only Master Craft dealer for the territory. The only thing Master Craft cared about was which dealer was going to commit to 100 boats. Well doing this on a normal year is a pretty difficult thing to commit to let alone during a serious down time in the Seattle economy. You could tell that Master Craft just didn't give a rip though. they also strung out the dealers and didn't tell them they were getting canceled until the last minute because they were waiting for Copes to secure property in the area, so they strung Gonnasons along for months and wouldn't give them an answer until months after Master Crafts upper echelon mucky mucks came and visited and made their threats.

I share this story to put emphasis on what type of company Master Craft is. They don't care about anyone but them selves. I can't believe they don't realize what will happen when all of their dealers startt having huge amounts of carry over boats and start dumping them for nothing. It will hurt the entire industry especially their dealers and sooner or later they need to realize that people will buy a boat from a dealer not just for the brand of boat but for many other reasons. All I have to say is look at Tommy's Slalom Shop out of Denver. Iconic Master Craft dealer switched and shocked all of it's customer's but I really doubt Tommy's has any regrets to have left that relationship.

John Dorton's aticle said something "designing and building the world's highest quality, best performing sports luxury boats in every significant inboard niche". WHAT.....John Dorton must not ever get out drive other boats. Most of the recent Master Crafts drive more like a big fat I/O than they do an inboard and couldn't manuever fast enough to get out of the way of their own ugly shadows.

Oh, another thing is.......They are over priced......I don't care what anyone tells you......You do pay more for less with a Master Craft.

Good luck in Seattle Master Craft. Thanks for helping Malibu have another record breaking year.

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Well here is what I know.

Copes has around 200 carry over 2007 Master Crafts. They have around 100 carry over 2007 Malibus. Who knows how many boats they have as carry overs from other manufactures.

Copes asked all of their manufactures to help by paying their flooring (loans for boats) for a period of time (not sure how long). All of their manufactures (business partners) agreed to this EXCEPT Master Craft. On top of this Master Craft still expects them to buy another 300 '2008 model year boats (no exception pretty much). To me this shows that Master Craft has no concern about the well being of their dealers; not even their largest one.

I was selling Master Crafts when they dropped the 2 local dealers here in Seattle and brought Cope in. It was at the end of 2001 and the beginning of the 2002 model year. This was at the height of the DOT COM bust and boat sales were in the toilet. Master Craft had both dealers (Doug's Boats and Gonnasons) put together business plans to show why they should be the only Master Craft dealer for the territory. The only thing Master Craft cared about was which dealer was going to commit to 100 boats. Well doing this on a normal year is a pretty difficult thing to commit to let alone during a serious down time in the Seattle economy. You could tell that Master Craft just didn't give a rip though. they also strung out the dealers and didn't tell them they were getting canceled until the last minute because they were waiting for Copes to secure property in the area, so they strung Gonnasons along for months and wouldn't give them an answer until months after Master Crafts upper echelon mucky mucks came and visited and made their threats.

I share this story to put emphasis on what type of company Master Craft is. They don't care about anyone but them selves. I can't believe they don't realize what will happen when all of their dealers startt having huge amounts of carry over boats and start dumping them for nothing. It will hurt the entire industry especially their dealers and sooner or later they need to realize that people will buy a boat from a dealer not just for the brand of boat but for many other reasons. All I have to say is look at Tommy's Slalom Shop out of Denver. Iconic Master Craft dealer switched and shocked all of it's customer's but I really doubt Tommy's has any regrets to have left that relationship.

John Dorton's aticle said something "designing and building the world's highest quality, best performing sports luxury boats in every significant inboard niche". WHAT.....John Dorton must not ever get out drive other boats. Most of the recent Master Crafts drive more like a big fat I/O than they do an inboard and couldn't manuever fast enough to get out of the way of their own ugly shadows.

Oh, another thing is.......They are over priced......I don't care what anyone tells you......You do pay more for less with a Master Craft.

Good luck in Seattle Master Craft. Thanks for helping Malibu have another record breaking year.

Way to go, working in the name of the boat model that put Malibu on the map... Thumbup.gif

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Well here is what I know.

Copes has around 200 carry over 2007 Master Crafts. They have around 100 carry over 2007 Malibus. Who knows how many boats they have as carry overs from other manufactures.

Copes asked all of their manufactures to help by paying their flooring (loans for boats) for a period of time (not sure how long). All of their manufactures (business partners) agreed to this EXCEPT Master Craft. On top of this Master Craft still expects them to buy another 300 '2008 model year boats (no exception pretty much). To me this shows that Master Craft has no concern about the well being of their dealers; not even their largest one.

I just got off the phone with a very reliable source and this is pretty accurate regarding MC. Only it is about 112 MC's total ranging from 05-07.

Basically, Copes has decided to drop MC since they would not help them out and would not back down on there 08 allocations. And, in addition to that they wanted Copes to open six more stores that would be MC only Crazy.gif

They are currently working on having MC buy back all of the left overs. If not, than Copes will sell them at a great discount :)

As far as BU, they do have 07's left over (don't know how many), but they are moving them pretty easily. Great time to make a deal on 07's Rockon.gif

On a side note, when Nor Cal MC took over Ski World up here in Pleasanton, CA, last year they were a lot of left over boats. MC gave Nor Cal a great deal on those bosts and they were able to move them. The sales guy I spoke with said if it wasn't for the left overs they would be hurting. I drive by that dealer every couple of weeks and now they are FULL of 08's. I guess they got there allocation. Only time will tell on how well they will do.

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Thanks Stewart, 112 is a bit better than 200. I should have put a bit more of a disclaimer on that paragraph and numbers.

No worries, the context was dead on.

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Well here is what I know.

Copes has around ... Oh, another thing is.......They are over priced......I don't care what anyone tells you......You do pay more for less with a Master Craft.

Good luck in Seattle Master Craft. Thanks for helping Malibu have another record breaking year.

Rockon.gif Nice Rant!! Thumbup.gif

:lol:

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Right on, Matt!! (or John?! Thought I knew)

This is the 4th MC dealer in the Seattle area to be dumped. It has got to be getting old at some point. People are going to stop buying MC because of the lack of stability in the market. Who will they get service from next?

The Spokane MC dealer has an unreal amount of inventory in their yard right now, not to mention a brand new mortgage. I have to wonder how well they can sell $80,000 & $110,000 boats in a blue collar, small town. And are they allowed to sell other brands or types of boats to make mortgage payments? My guess is their Salt Lake City store will be asked to help out for a few years.

BTW, besides the old Spokane MC dealer, Alpine Haus Marine, that got ousted by MC, the MC dealer in Pasco, Metz Marine was also nixed by the mothership. So thats no less than 6 MC dealers in Washington state alone over about 15 yrs.

Edited by Bill_AirJunky
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