Consignment sale of your boat Pro's & Con's???

[eyeskeenas]

hi everyone,

im in the process of selling my Quintrex freedom sport and i was approched by a number of boat yards wanting to put it in their yards on consignment. promising the world and all the usual sales pitches. in the end after a few no shows, I took one boat yard up on their offer and so far im a little dissatified on thier efforts. I wont name them because im not going to play that game. but sometimes i wonder how they stay in business.

So what i was wondering has anyone had any success with a boat yard and the hole consignment thing? should i hold out or bring it home and do it myself?

Thanks in advance

Cheers eyeskeenas

[Steeler]

Unless your unavailable to deal with prospects then do it yourself, no one knows it like you do.

[Marlin_Mike]

Brother in Law consigned his in a Brisbane yard. $700 in fees before she hit the lot. $350 for detailing and clean. $350 for mechanical check and inspection of her. Sat there a few months. Usual occasional p[hone call: "Had an offer
way under what he wanted, will you take it?" Had another offer under the asking price, will you take it?. This went on and on. Eventually he sold it but gave it away Asking price was $36,500 including boat yards mark up, he took in the end $28,000, after a couple of price drops. I wouldn't do it personally............................

[eyeskeenas]

Thanks guys, you have confirmed my suspicions. i will bring the big girl home.
its a good boat and im sure if i had kept it a home it would have gone by now and i would be on my way to a shiny new beast.
the tyre kickers, prop spinners and no shows do test your limits.

thanks again

[fisho64]

bought a boat alittle while back that had been on consignment. Yard took a deposit then when owner chased it up a few weeks later, he was told "buyer got us to fit new hydro steering, deck wash, rewire trailer, dual battery setup, then pulled out. You owe us $4100 minus his $100 deposit or you wont get ya boat back".
He knew nothing about it, gave them $2K and stole the boat back then sold it to me :-)
I would have told them to GET Fd and give the bikies $2K to go and get it, but it was my lucky buy I think.

[Catweb]

Some years ago I had my 2 year old Savage Swordfish on consignment with one the largest dealers in Adelaide. After 4 months I had not had a solid offer. While it was still at the dealer I managed to sell it myself to a mate of a mate for the price I wanted. Ended up in a big $hitfight with dealer and in the end I had to give him $1,000 to let me have my boat back. I wanted $26K for it, the dealer was trying to sell it for $31K. I sold it for $26K.

Frankly the dealer did sod all in trying to sell my boat and other than a couple of 4 line, single coulmn ads in the Saturday paper did no advertising. I had detailed it before handing it over and they never touched it again in the 4 months they had it.

I wrote the $1,000 off as 4 months boat storage, but I will never put a boat on consignment again.

[Shawn 66]

I am going against the trend . I sold my Quinny on consignment last year . Cost me zero upfront . The bloke asked me what I wanted for it and the only time he rang me was to tell me he had sold it . I am unaware how much he made on the deal , but the main thing I was concerned about was I got the price I wanted. The other thing was , he handled all the rego transfers etc .
Shawn.

[eyeskeenas]

bought a boat alittle while back that had been on consignment. Yard took a deposit then when owner chased it up a few weeks later, he was told "buyer got us to fit new hydro steering, deck wash, rewire trailer, dual battery setup, then pulled out. You owe us $4100 minus his $100 deposit or you wont get ya boat back".
He knew nothing about it, gave them $2K and stole the boat back then sold it to me :-)
I would have told them to GET Fd and give the bikies $2K to go and get it, but it was my lucky buy I think.

Holy dooly, that is not cool as far as the boat yard goes.

[eyeskeenas]

I am going against the trend . I sold my Quinny on consignment last year . Cost me zero upfront . The bloke asked me what I wanted for it and the only time he rang me was to tell me he had sold it . I am unaware how much he made on the deal , but the main thing I was concerned about was I got the price I wanted. The other thing was , he handled all the rego transfers etc .
Shawn.

Cheers Mate, Im glad someone has had some success with consigning a boat.

[wrxhoon]

The fact that you are an unsecured creditor would stop me from giving it to the dealer on consingnment.
If the dealer goes belly up you lost your boat and then you line up to get maybe 10cents in the $.
Take the boat home and sell it yourself or try this mob.
http://www.boatlocator.com.au/info/selling.html

They will help you sell it from your place but they charge you 5%.
Nothing to loose , nothing to pay if you don't sell.

[boatboy50]

The fact that you are an unsecured creditor would stop me from giving it to the dealer on consingnment.
If the dealer goes belly up you lost your boat and then you line up to get maybe 10cents in the $.
Take the boat home and sell it yourself or try this mob.
http://www.boatlocator.com.au/info/selling.html

They will help you sell it from your place but they charge you 5%.
Nothing to loose , nothing to pay if you don't sell.

Hey Mate,

This is simply untrue. You never sign ownership of your boat over to a dealer on consignment, so if they go belly up the boat is still yours. The creditors (they can be scum) may ask for it, but the second you bring a lawyer into the fold they'll ask you to come and get your boat out of their yard. Trust me, i've been through it.

There are some decent dealers around. Never pay anything cash up front to sell, pay contractors (detailers ect) cash in their hand after the job is done, and ask for everything in writing. On the dealer side i've sold hundreds of boats on consignment without issues, even for/to members here.

Darren

Darren

[Sheik]

I'll put a story in about John Crawford Marine at Tingalpa. Don't know them well, aren't related, don't own par t of the business...no connection betwween me and them at all. However, this is just my experience so make of it what you will.
First boat was older with mods here and there and starting to get tired. Owner there said "we'll need to spend money on it before we let it go in the yard." I said ok i'lll take it home and do that. SOld it then at home just as I started to modify it. Second boat was a 12 month old Stacer, still in good nick depsite being owned by me for 12 months. Crawford blooke said we'll need to do these few things, we can do them here and they will cost you X. OK, got them done, put about 22k on it, sold it for about 20k two or three months later.
I wouold deal with them again because there was just no interest when i had it on various web sites, and they did all the running around, advertising and what not. I was pretty pleased with the service they gave me and pretty much did a good job where I 've heard other yards tend to stick your boat up the back of the lot and forget about it just to get their numbers up. If you want to get your boat in there it has to be in good shape, which means that I spend money to get my boat in shape, but I know that I'm dealing with a mob who want good quality boats that won't come back at them. Just my $0.02.
regards jim

[cormorant]

Check what your insurer says. Some need to be notified and others won't cover your boat. Never rely on other peoples insurance and that goes for if it is taken on test runs- are you insured . Read your insurance document.

Be especially careful with security on yards and accessories as things "get lost" from electronics, spare tyres props, safety gear ......

Same old story- there is a very few good dealers and a lot of shonks you should avoid and from the other side same with customers with their expectations. A lot of sellers lack the ability to price and describe their boat accurately or present it professionally or be honest.

If a boat is sold and money is paid to dealer ( who don't run segregated or trust accounts- few do) and they close the doors????? Not easy to get your money back nor boat so stand in the queue for you X cents in the dollar. Amazing how this happens when shonks are going broke and often they will look like busy yards and then overnight ........................................

There is always risk and shonks are good at what they do.

Even large good honest dealers can get shafted by banks , deals overheads and go belly up. You will be the last to know unlike suppliers who will have been chasing invoices for months or only supplying on a cash up front basis.

[BM]

I agree with Darren completely.

I retailed boats for 3 years and many of those were consignment boats. Customers never paid a cent for detail work, minor fix-ups etc. I wore the cost of that, even if it didn't sell and left the yard. If more serious issues were detected at inspection time of entering the yard the owner was notified and it was their choice if they wanted it fixed or didn't want to proceed with selling it. But if it had problems, it either had to be fixed or removed. It wouldn't be sold as it was.

I always worked on a price the owner was happy with and whatever I made over the top was mine. That keeps owners happy I found. They get what they wanted or pretty close to it and they then don't care what the business made from it.

Sometimes boats end up sitting too long and no amount of price changes can move them. That happens occasionally for whatever reason and not much can be done about it.

Consignment paperwork should outline every detail about the boat, motor and trailer and accessories fitted to the boat. Along with signatures from both parties and the agreed selling period and sined stat dec declaring the vessel free of any and all encumberances.

As Darren said, at no stage is ownership transferred to the dealer and the vessel remains the property of the owner.

Often buyers don't like consignment boats because of the negative perception associated with consignment boats. This is accurate and driven by the fact that many yards treat consignment boats very differently to yard owned boats and shy away from things that need fixing.

My take on that was that it didn't matter which boat left the yard (mine or a consignment boat) as the buyer was only ever going to remember the business name and not whether the boat was yard owned or consignment. So consignment boats needed to be as good as yard owned boats in every way.

You will get more for your boat selling it privately but obviously through a yard your sales chances are increased. With the closure of a numerous Qld businesses over the past 18 months or so cross your t's and dot your i's and you should be ok. If your stressed out over it then give it a miss and sell it privately.

cheers

[eyeskeenas]

Thanks very much to everyone who has contributed to this post, it does make me feel alot better knowing that i think i have covered all aspects of the deal.
I will bring the boat home and sell her myself, at least then she will be back in the garage under cover and if it doesnt sell its still a good boat and its there whenever i want to use her.
I hope im not the only person to benefit from this

Cheers Nathan