A Handbook for a Different Kind of Buyer

The latest Discover Boating study offers the clearest view in a decade of how customers discover, evaluate, and choose, and what dealerships must do differently to keep pace.

By Matt Gruhn

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. And that has seemed to define our identity.

It’s a distinction that has shaped how boat dealerships operate, how their teams are trained, and how many of our dealership 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 your brand is worthy long before you ever meet 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 something we haven’t had in a long time — a clear, data-backed view into how today’s boat buyers discover, evaluate, and ultimately decide to engage with our businesses. (Download it by scanning the QR code at B2B.DiscoverBoating.com/ipsos-insights.aspx)

What it reveals should challenge some of our most deeply held assumptions.

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, you’ve already witnessed. And yet, you can attest: The relationship still matters. It hasn’t disappeared.

But 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. 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 because the model many of us are still operating within was built for a different starting point — one where the relationship began in the showroom, where the salesperson guided the process, and where trust was built through face-to-face conversation.

Today, trust is being evaluated upstream. Expectations are being set digitally. And the experience we deliver is being compared not just to other dealerships, not just to auto or RV or powersports, but 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 Discover Boating’s 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.

What the Handbook makes clear is that the pressure many dealerships are feeling right now 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 comes as the result of a growing misalignment between how customers make decisions today 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 who they trust and who they don’t. In many cases, they’re not beginning the relationship with you — they’re continuing one you didn’t even realize had started.

The value of this Handbook is amplified as it reinforces that today’s market is not made up of a single type of buyer moving through a single path. It’s made up of 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 fully engage in the boating lifestyle.

Those barriers aren’t new. You experience them regularly in your conversations, and we’ve seen them in study after study. What is new is where — and how — those barriers must now 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.

To state it plainly, 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 they’ll 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 market” with you because clarity, confidence and trust were never established upstream.

This is the strain I hear dealerships 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. And that is the gap this Handbook helps us see more clearly than we have in years.

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, then 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.

That’s the opportunity this Handbook puts in front of us.

It 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. This Handbook is just one piece of evidence of that commitment.

The question now is whether we will match that effort.

We now have the evidence. We have a Handbook that clearly identifies who today’s customer is, what they need, and how to connect with them.

The dealerships that grow from here will be the ones that use it. The ones that design experiences that build confidence, remove friction, and earn the relationship long before the conversation ever starts.