CONTINUOUSWAVE

I saw this article about Irish Boat Shop opening a store in Traverse City.

http://upnorthlive.com/news/local/irish-boat-shop-opening-new-location-in-traverse-city

Irish is currently located in Charlevoix and Harbor Springs. A Whaler dealer was already in Traverse City. Assuming that the Whaler franchise is granted for a certain geographical area, I wondered how two would be allowed in a single area. I see now that Traverse Bay Marine (the other dealer) no longer has Boston Whaler listed as one of their brands.


Normich

IRISH has been a Boston Whaler dealer for a very long time. Maybe they had some seniority they could call on to make this change happen. Or maybe the other dealer wasn't moving enough product.

Boston Whaler has shown a trend toward a preference for representation by retailers with more than one outlet.

The sell-off of SEA RAY might also affect dealer representation. There were quite a few years when the big SEA RAY dealers suddenly all became Boston Whaler dealers, too. I wonder how that is going to work out when someone else owns SEA RAY.

Lots of change. Walstom Marine opened a store in Traverse City last summer. They are a Sea Ray, Tiara, Pursuit, and Chris Craft dealer with stores in Harbor Springs, Cheboygan, And Bay Harbor.

Irish has a good reputation and I wish them well. The location they chose makes me think they are going to push ski and wake board boats real hard along with Whalers.

Con