Let’s start with an uncomfortable truth: Today’s consumers are demanding pricing transparency, and the boating industry isn’t there yet. This isn’t because dealers are trying to hide something. And it’s not because manufacturers don’t understand what’s happening. The pricing system we operate within was never designed for today’s buyer, today’s technology or today’s expectations.
In fact, this isn’t just a pricing problem. It’s a breakdown in the trust architecture our industry has relied on for decades.
For decades, the marine industry built a pricing model around flexibility. MSRP wasn’t meant to be the price; it was meant to create room. Room to negotiate. Room to handle trades. Room to make complex deals work. And for a long time, that system worked. We trained customers to believe the “real” price came after the conversation started. “Call for price” wasn’t offensive — it was expected. Boat shows rewarded urgency. Trades became the emotional center of the deal. And the number that mattered most wasn’t the price of the new boat, but the difference between the new boat and the trade.
That was our trust architecture. It relied on personal interaction, explanation and negotiation. But markets change. Buyers change. And technology changes faster than any of us would like.
Today’s buyers form opinions — and trust — before they ever speak to a salesperson. Our new reality is that what once felt flexible now feels confusing. What once felt negotiable now feels evasive. And a system built for face-to-face selling is breaking down in a digital-first world.
Why Transparency is Difficult
From the outside, pricing transparency can sound simple: just post the price. From the inside, dealers know it’s anything but simple. Trade values vary widely, not because of bad intent but because there is no consistent way to value boats with different features, packages, hours, conditions and aftermarket add-ons. There is no single source of truth for dealers, buyers or lenders.
Optional upgrades may add tens of thousands of dollars to a boat yet be invisible in pricing guides. Two dealers can look at the same trade and land tens of thousands of dollars apart, and both can justify their number. Layer in wholesale-based financing, lender constraints, rising floorplan costs, compressed margins and a market full of customers who bought during the pandemic surge and now owe more than their boats are worth, and the complexity compounds quickly.
One dealer recently shared a story that captures this paradox perfectly. They had a noncurrent new boat priced at roughly 5% over cost — almost no margin. A customer wanted to trade in a boat on which he still owed well more than the actual cash value. There was simply no room to make the deal work.
Ironically, the deal was lost not because the price was too high, but because the dealer hadn’t started at MSRP and didn’t have “meat on the bone” to manipulate numbers. That’s the trust architecture breaking down in real time.
Addressing this issue means we must understand that consumers see online listings, asking prices, MSRPs, special boat-show pricing and wide variation from one dealer to the next. But what they don’t see is just as important: what boats actually sell for, reconditioning costs, wholesale values, lender constraints or the risk dealers take when accepting trades.
This is the result of a system built around conversation and negotiation, not transparency. And left unaddressed, this ambiguity will continue to erode the trust consumers place in our industry.
What’s encouraging is that this conversation is no longer theoretical. Dealers are experimenting. Some are using buy-it-now pricing strategically on aged inventory. Others are rethinking how and when prices are presented online.
Manufacturers, meanwhile, are having serious internal discussions about core models, simplified packages and pricing structures that reduce friction while preserving healthy dealer margins. Many are recognizing that this transition may not be as painful as once feared, but only if it’s handled thoughtfully and collaboratively. Most important, these conversations are happening together.
With this column landing just ahead of our industry’s most visible marketplace — the Miami International Boat Show — the timing matters. Boat shows no longer just sell boats. They expose our trust architecture in real time. Customers compare prices, messaging and experiences side-by-side, and they quickly sense when the logic doesn’t add up.
What Comes Next
There is no silver bullet that will solve this dilemma. No single dealer can fix this alone. No manufacturer can force it. And no association should pretend there’s one “right” answer. What’s required is co-creation.
Progress will come from shared language, shared data and shared intent. From educating consumers earlier in the journey. From building trust before the door swings, especially for first-time buyers, not just at the sales desk. And from recognizing that transparency and trust are inseparable.
This isn’t about fixing margins or prescribing pricing. Rather, this is a rebuilding of our trust architecture to match how people shop, research and decide today. The marine industry created the pricing system we operate in, which means the industry can also evolve it. But today’s market won’t wait for us to get comfortable, and consumers won’t wait for alignment. If we don’t lead this transition together, it will be led for us — by buyers who choose to spend their recreational dollars elsewhere.
For the marine dealer — indeed, for the marine industry — of tomorrow, pricing transparency is not about publishing a number. It’s also not a trend we can wait out or a tactic we can selectively adopt. The moment we’re in right now is unmistakable. We built a system that worked for a different era. A trust architecture designed for conversations that happened in showrooms. Today, as judgements are formed online, that gap is costing us trust, time and customers.
Our choice is simple: We can continue defending a structure that’s quietly eroding, or we can work together to design an approach that earns confidence before the very first touch. This inflection point represents an opportunity for our industry to rethink how it shows up in the marketplace — how it earns trust, attracts new buyers and revitalizes its go-to-market approach for the future. The choices we make will set the stage for the next era of marine retail.
Matt Gruhn is president of the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas.
This column first appeared in the February, 2026 issue of Soundings Trade Only.
