A Newport startup company is hoping to become the must-click Internet site for boat buyers and owners. The company, Mariner1 Inc., launched its site in late January to link recreational boaters to boat dealers, boatyards, marinas and other marine service providers. Although the Mariner1.com site has just begun to attract visitors, it already has assembled a large network of marine businesses and a growing database of customer reviews.
“It’s been really a nice growth. We have over 4,000 dealers in our service network now,” said Chris Di Napoli, Mariner1.com’s chief executive officer.
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The site is designed to be a nautical clearinghouse allowing boaters to compare boats based on their specifications and consumer ratings, search for dealers and boatyards and other marine businesses, contact them and post reviews of the service they got from them.
“In terms of building the site, we’ve surpassed the number of surveys we wanted to get. Now we’re already at 50,000. That’s one of the milestones we wanted because that’s the value that the consumer sees,” Di Napoli said.
Mariner1.com built its database of consumer reviews of boats, dealers, marinas and boatyards by surveying boat show attendees and by mailing surveys to registered boat owners.
But what if some of the more than 4,000 boat dealers, marinas, boatyards and other marine businesses that have registered to join the Mariner1.com network take exception to unfavorable reviews posted on the site?
“Obviously, that could be a concern, and we’ve talked about it,” Di Napoli said, adding that most reputable dealers aren’t afraid of honest consumer reviews. “I think that overall the industry looks at it as a positive thing.”
Although the consumer reviews are valuable to boat buyers, the main attraction of the site for marine businesses are the sales leads it generates. And the more visitors the site has, Di Napoli figures, the more marine businesses will want to be represented on the site.
“We’ve been very happy with the traffic so far, but we’re just starting to get the traffic,” Di Napoli said. Mariner1.com has been publicizing itself at boat shows and by placing advertisements in boating magazines and at online search engines.
Barry Carroll of Carroll Marine Ltd. in Bristol doesn’t have any doubt that the Internet is changing the boating industry.
“I hate to sound like CNBC, but the Web is clearly reshaping the way we do business every single day,” said Carroll, who last month assigned an employee to field e-mails from potential customers full time. “There’s just been so much. It has been a radical change in the last six months.”
In response, Carroll Marine has changed the focus of the advertisements it places in yachting magazines from trying to sell boats to trying to get boat buyers to visit the Web site and there be sold on a boat.
“Anybody that can afford a boat has a computer and is on the Web,” Carroll said. “On the Web page is where we get into specifics and highly technical drawings and specifications. That allows us to put pretty pictures in the magazine.”
And his company isn’t alone. Carroll said his list of Internet “bookmarks” is full of competitors.
Mariner1.com has plenty of competition too. Although each takes a slightly different tack, the Internet is full of boating Web sites including: boaters.com, boating.com, boatsandboating.com and boatnet.com.
