For years, our industry has taken pride in a belief that feels almost foundational to who we are: that boating is different. Automotive is transactional. Boating is relational. It’s a distinction that has defined our identity. It has shaped how dealerships operate, how their teams are trained, and how our industry leaders define their competitive advantage.
But what if the way our customer relationships are formed has changed more than we’ve fully acknowledged? What if that customer, while still looking for a relationship with a brand, is simply deciding whether a brand is worthy long before the dealer ever meets them?
That shift is at the heart of the most comprehensive consumer study our industry has seen in a decade. The Discover Boating Growth Strategy Handbook, developed in partnership with Ipsos, gives us a clear, data-backed view into how today’s boat buyers discover, evaluate and ultimately decide to engage with our businesses.
Scan the QR code at B2B.DiscoverBoating.com/ipsos-insights.aspx to download the study. What it reveals should challenge some of our most deeply held assumptions.
Key Findings
Today’s customer is more informed. More digital. More self-directed. They are researching extensively, forming opinions through video, social channels, peer validation and online content well before they ever step into a dealership or submit a lead. Much of that, we’ve already witnessed. And yet we can all attest that the relationship still matters. It hasn’t disappeared.
What we’ve missed in understanding the impact here is that as we’ve worked diligently to reignite the growth in our industry, the relationship now begins in the moments we don’t see. It’s happening in the experience we create before the conversation ever starts with a prospect.
This reality has significant implications for how we think about the future of marine retail. The model many dealers are still operating within was built for a different starting point, one where the relationship began in the showroom. The salesperson guided the process, and trust was built through face-to-face conversation.
Today, trust is being evaluated upstream. Expectations are being set digitally. And the experience a dealer delivers is being compared not just to other dealerships, not just to auto or RV or powersports, but also to the best retail experiences customers encounter anywhere.
This is not a criticism of how our industry has operated. This moment simply requires a stated recognition that the environment around us has changed. And that’s exactly why the Discover Boating handbook matters. For smart dealers and manufacturers, this is the kind of output that turns an industry investment into a competitive advantage. But only if it’s used.
Misalignment
The handbook makes clear that the pressure many dealerships are feeling is not random. It’s not just the result of higher interest rates, stagnating inventory levels or shifting demand cycles. The uncomfortable nature of today’s market is a result of the growing misalignment between how customers make decisions and how many of our businesses are still designed to support those decisions.
The old model has worked for generations. A customer would show up, a conversation would begin, needs would be uncovered, and the relationship would take shape from there. The dealership and salesperson controlled the pace, the information flow and much of the experience. That’s no longer how this works. Today’s buyer, as the Ipsos study documents, arrives having already moved through critical stages of the journey. They’ve explored options, compared brands, watched walkthroughs, read reviews and formed early opinions about whom they trust (or don’t). In many cases, they’re not beginning the relationship with a dealer. They’re continuing one the dealer didn’t even realize had started.
This handbook also reinforces that today’s market is more than a single type of buyer moving along a single path. There are multiple mindsets, each with its own motivations, expectations and barriers. Some customers are ready to move quickly. Others are hesitant, looking for education and reassurance. Some are constrained by time. Others by cost. Many by a lack of confidence — in the product, in the process, in the dealership they choose, or in their own ability to engage fully in the boating lifestyle.
Those barriers aren’t new. Dealers experience them regularly in conversations, and we’ve seen them in study after study. What’s new is where and how those barriers must be addressed. They are no longer resolved primarily in the showroom. They are being confronted much earlier, often before a dealership ever has the opportunity to engage directly. Which means the responsibility to break through them has shifted, as well. Clarity must be established before the conversation begins. Confidence must be built before the first visit to the dealership. And trust must be earned before today’s customers will ever commit to becoming a lead.
When any one of those elements is missing, the outcome is predictable. Slower decision-making. Lower conversion. Customers who looked like legitimate buyers on the surface but were never truly in the dealership’s market because clarity, confidence and trust were never established upstream.
This is the strain I hear dealers explaining to me today. Their closing skills aren’t compromised. It’s just that the conditions required for a customer to be ready to buy are being shaped earlier than the model was built to support. That is the gap this handbook helps us see more clearly than we have in years.
Pivot Point
This is one of those opportunities where the conversation around the dealership of the future becomes more practical. If the journey is starting earlier, if trust is being evaluated sooner, and if customers are working through their barriers before they ever engage, the dealerships that win will be the ones that design for that reality. Not by abandoning relationships, but by building them differently and through the experiences they create before, during and after the sale.
This handbook offers dealers and manufacturers a clearer view into how today’s customer thinks, what they need and where they get stuck. It shows us where expectations are being set, and where we have the chance to meet them with greater clarity, stronger communication and a more intentional experience.
Discover Boating is doing its part to bring new customers into the market and to better understand how they behave. The handbook is just one piece of evidence of that commitment. The question now is whether dealerships will match that effort.
The dealerships that grow from here will be the ones that use this information to design experiences that build confidence, remove friction and earn the relationship long before the conversation ever starts.
Matt Gruhn is president of the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas.
This story originally appeared in the June 2026 issue of Soundings Trade Only.
