Wanda Kenton Smith
Soundings Trade Only
In the past year, we hustled like crazy to get those hundreds of thousands of new and used boats sold, serviced and delivered to meet historic consumer demand. As the 2021 buying season unfolded, dealers scrambled to arrange as much new product delivery as possible, while OEMs continued to battle supply-chain bottlenecks, unprecedented production delays and retail inventory shortages.
To keep afloat in the fall and winter, dealers aggressively prepared preowned inventory for resale purposes. Following unprecedented industry encouragement, the enlightened among us pivoted and prevailed, taking a cue from the home-building industry. Many adopted new strategies to present and presell the invisible.
And now, here we are with scores of confirmed new-boat buyers who are standing in the long and winding production queue...[read more]
