While dealers across North America scramble to sell boats with little-to-no inventory in stock, manufacturers are scrambling to catch up on production.

 

At most boat builders, the incoming orders are far exceeding the ability to produce.

 

At a 100-boat-per-week builder, for example, they are currently receiving 300 new boat orders per week. “It’s a hole you can’t dig out of,” an executive there explains. “Everyone’s calling. They’re frustrated because they’re sold out of all of their boats. It’s insane.”

 

Another builder shipped 3 boats per day for most of the 2020 model year and is moving to 5 boats a day by next month. “This time last year, we had about a month of orders,” their head of sales explained. “We are into April 2021 with orders right now.”

 

And yet another has released a list of the eight models that it has already sold out of for the 2021 model year: “Please make note, we are no longer in a position to take orders for these models,” their letter explains.

 

Meanwhile, dealers, many of whom have pre-sold most of the product they have on order — one dealer has already pre-sold 19 of the next 23 units en route to his store —  fear not having enough boats in stock to maintain sales levels for the year ahead, let alone entertain the idea of having enough inventory to conduct a boat show, where they generate the lion’s share of their leads.

 

81 percent of dealers suggested they were either “very low”
or completely out of new unit inventory.

 

The inventory shortage threatens the marine industry’s ability to continue its momentum into 2021 on many levels, and dealers are racing to figure out a solution. In the meantime, the stats at the dealer level show that, according to a recent survey conducted by the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, 81 percent of boat dealers are either “very low” or are completely out of inventory. Fifteen percent of them reported being out of new units to sell.

 

Of those same dealers, 88 percent suggested they planned to order the same (40%) or more (48%) inventory as they had in 2020; and nearly two-thirds — 64 percent — noted that their current lead time to receive newly ordered boats was more than three months.

 

The consensus from boat manufacturers seems to be that it will take 12-18 months before the inventory pipeline is restocked to normal levels.