Fareham, U.K. – (September 10, 2014) — Boats Group (Boats Group), the division of Dominion Enterprises that operates YachtWorld, boats.com, Cosas de Barcos and the U.S.-based Boat Trader, has conducted an in-depth analysis of data across three of its sites, revealing an increasing trend among consumers to buy greater numbers of new boats in the past three years. While the trend appears to be much more pronounced in the U.S. than in Europe, it gives a strong indication of likely European buying habits in the coming 6-12 months.
Boats Group’s YachtWorld Q3 Market Index recently reported that brokerage markets in the U.S. and Europe are both exhibiting positive momentum, with the U.S. rally continuing and an upward move in the third quarter in Europe balancing out a rough start to the year.
Backing up this positive trend, research published by Boats Group last month showed that approximately 28% of prospects across its three U.S. sites ultimately purchased new boats. This is greatly ahead of the average for the total 2013 boat market of 18%, suggesting Boats Group’s website prospects in the U.S. have a significantly higher propensity to purchase new boats.
Katie Jackson, boats.com brand manager, commented: “We are constantly analysing our data to find the latest global industry trends, and we’re pleased to share our findings with the market. While there was some variation across Boats Group’s marine portals, boats.com showed the strongest new versus used split of 33% vs 67%, nearly double that of the overall market. The data shows that consumers may start their search for used boats but ultimately purchase new ones, underlining the importance of dealers and OEMs capturing this audience quickly and effectively.”
InfoLink Technologies, Inc., a respected U.S. research firm in the marine industry, conducted the lead analysis for Boats Group to identify consumer purchase behaviors and provide overall market intelligence. The firm evaluated more than 2.3 million customer leads generated across Boats Group’s U.S. sites — boats.com, YachtWorld and Boat Trader — between October 2010 and September 2013. It discovered that Boats Group communicated directly by telephone or email with around 13% of all new boat buyers. The study also revealed that in almost 300,000 U.S. transactions, people requested information from one or more of Boats Group’s portals, representing an overall conversion rate of 12.4%.
Sarah Simmons, YachtWorld brand manager, added, “The data shows that YachtWorld transactions skew heavily toward pre-owned boats, reflecting its expansive sales volume in the brokered boat segments. The pre-owned market is becoming increasingly healthy, and we feel that by supporting this positive trend, the Boats Group portals are contributing to the sector’s general buoyancy, leading to growth in the wider market.”
To provide additional resources to this growing audience researching their next boat purchase, Boats Group has just released the first EU edition of the boats.com Boat Reviews Catalogue, a compilation of every boat review and “First Look” video produced by its dedicated editorial team since the beginning of 2013. The catalogue features reviews in English, German and Spanish and will be showcased to manufacturers during the autumn boat show season. boats.com’s “First Look” video production has been a key driver in reaching 5,000 YouTube channel subscribers and generating almost three million views.
About Boats Group
Boats Group (Boats Group) is the Internet partner of choice for the recreational marine industry and operates the market leading web portals – boats.com, yachtworld.com, Cosas de Barcos and boattrader.com. Boats Group is a division of Dominion Enterprises, a leading marketing services and publishing company that provides businesses with a comprehensive suite of technology-based marketing solutions including Internet advertising, lead generation, CRM, website design and hosting and data management services. Boats Group has offices in North America (Norfolk, Virginia; Seattle, Washington; and Vancouver, British Columbia) as well as in Europe (United Kingdom, Germany and Italy) and Australia. The company employs 180 people, has customers in 106 countries and advertises boats for sale in 166 countries. In 2013, over 52 million unique visitors spent time researching products on Boats Group web and mobile sites, apps and social media outlets. Boats Group’s global reach includes 23 localized web portals which are translated into 13 languages.