Norfolk, VA – (January 22, 2014) — Boats Group (Boats Group), the world leader in online boat sales, has announced a strategic partnership with Delius Klasing, Europe’s largest family-run special interest publisher, with the creation of an online boat sales marketplace on their Yacht.de portal. Boats Group is a division of Dominion Enterprises.
The marketplace features a feed showing sailing boats from Boats Group’s YachtWorld and boats.com portals, providing boat buyers with 15,500 boats to browse in their local markets.
In addition to the wealth of local market listings, Boats Group’s boats.com portal will power an online private-seller platform which will be promoted by Delius Klasing in their sail and powerboat magazines, YACHT and boote. Together, they reach more than 300,000 readers with each issue.
The new online private-seller platform will offer readers a simple and efficient user interface to create online listings which will be displayed on yacht.de, boote-magazin.de and boats.com, exposing their advertisement to boat buyers in Germany and around the world. This innovative and unique partnership approach is set to give the new private-seller platform extensive exposure alongside Yacht and boote magazine’s existing print classified markets.
The partnership was officially launched at the Boot Düsseldorf Flagship Night on Saturday 18th January.
Boats Group already boasts a strong global presence, with more than 5,000 boat sales companies as customers and market-leading online boat sales portals in thirteen languages. Its portfolio includes national and international online brands that comprise boats.com and YachtWorld. This latest move by boats.com in the German market is another significant step for Boats Group in consolidating its position as the world’s most popular marine website group.
Ian Atkins, senior vice president and general manager of Boats Group, commented: “We are thrilled to be launching this new initiative at Dusseldorf Boat Show and very much looking forward to working alongside our new German partners. It’s a really exciting way for us to leverage boats.com’s position as the largest website of its kind, with more than 350,000 boats for sale in 171 countries – representing a total value of more than €135 billion. Delius Klasing’s size, customer reach and in-depth knowledge of the German market make them the perfect partner for us to be working with.”
Jochen Rieker, editor of YACHT Europe’s largest sailing magazine added, “The new initiative with Boats Group is a jump-start for our e-commerce activities. It creates value for all involved, not least of all our readers. The secondhand boat market is vital to the whole industry. With our enormous reach and the help of boats.com and YachtWorld, we will be very efficient in matchmaking buyers and sellers.”