THE PROBLEM

As the business grew and online marketplaces became more prevalent, MyBoatStore had to adapt their strategy. Having started out selling only a handful of products, with 100% of sales coming from their webstore, MyBoatStore had to increase distribution channels and widen their catalog.  As the business began growing at a very rapid rate, It became difficult to stay on top of customer support as it required managing various channels by logging in and out of them all to try and tackle support.

During Covid-19 MyBoatStore saw an unexpected spike in sales because people were sitting at home with lots of free time to work on their boats, which in turn, resulted in an increase in customer queries.

While MyBoatStore has been protected in many ways, having such a heavy reliance on online marketplaces has left it exposed to lots of variables that are outside of Greg’s control. So much of MyBoatStore’s success was built on deep connections with the customer.  When they started putting products on online marketplaces, they did so reluctantly as they feared they’d lose the close customer connection. Once MyBoatStore hit 20,000 SKUs, the close customer relationship slowly began to fade away. That is just the nature of operating within online marketplaces. It creates a barrier to direct customer conversations, which is a far cry from MyBoatStore’s roots.