: Hi Bryan,

: Actually from what I've seen, the extra profit has to be going into the
: wholesaler and "nanufacturer" pockets, the retailer has very
: slim margins on kayaks. If they don't sell accessories most retailers
: would go broke, and over the next few years I'd bet quite a few will go
: broke anyway.

When I left retail four or five years ago, we began to see margins increase on plastic canoes and kayaks. But that might have been our huge volume when all our stores where taken together, and I talked all the vendors to treat us as one entity. These were still molded in the US and I believe they still are. What we're seeing is a movement of composite kayaks construction overseas. I suspect that eventually, as more move, the retailer will see increased margins on glass. We were typically 30 to 35% on glass, which, BTW, is much better than what most all of fishing, optics, and electronics. But not nearly as good as the 40 to 45% margins on kayaking accessories. BTW, plastic was 35 to 40%, and we had an SMU canoe in royalex that I could put on sale at $699 company wide and still make 38% -40% depending on the year and volume. Most of them sold at regular retail for over 40%, which was very good for boats.

Still, if you count kayaking in with the rest of camping, which most large retailers do, you'll see that the overall year end margins tend to average about 30 to 38% in that category. So, boats tend to fall right in line with the average. The problem is there is so much money tied up into the big ticket items, like boats.

As more companies move composite construction overseas, the retailers will see increased margin and the consumer will see prices hold steady.