Global player a further boost for the local boating ecosystem

One of the world’s largest and most established yacht brokerages has entered the South African boating market.

UK-based Boatshed.com has a physical footprint through 80+ global franchises distributed over 18 countries. Until recently Boatshed only traded in used boats, but now has a new build boat division.

Boatshed South Africa, working out of Cape Town and now a SABBEX member, is run by Bruce Stirk & Lisa Malherbe and was launched in early 2022. The company says SA’s multiple world class boat yards make South Africa a good fit for Boatshed’s new build boat division.

Boatshed’s South Africa launch was shortly followed by the formal launch at RCYC in April of the company’s New Build Boat sales platform on Boatshed.com.  In his launch statement Boatshed.com founder Neil Chapman described the New Build initiative as a ‘win, win scenario for everyone’. Said Chapman: “Boat builders can reach a global audience, our franchisees can recruit new boat manufacturers, share their listings, introduce clients to boats they wouldn’t ordinarily be able to view and tap into new commission streams, and customers have more choice and are not restricted by their location.”

“We’re confident the New Build Boat platform will bring more traffic and buyers to the site and open up greater opportunities for the listing and sale of used boats as more new builds are ordered or considered. As well as giving the Boatshed group and individual businesses a considerable commercial opportunity, we’re helping to kick-start sales for smaller manufacturers, who are the backbone of our boat industry.” Chapman said.

Boatshed’s cornerstone offering to the new build manufactures includes a Non-exclusive, No Sale, No fee agreement. “Further to this, Boatshed, through its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) software can exclude certain geographic regions in which existing exclusivity agreements may be in place,” the company told SABBEX.

Stirk, who heads up Boatshed’s New Build Boat Division, said the uptake by the local new build yards had been ‘most rewarding’ with 10 yards having already agreed to take up the Boatshed offering. “These, and those to follow, are in the enviable position that they are some of the very first to be featured and thus first to market on the platform,” Stirk said.

He said Boatshed’s New Build Boat platform would be rolled out to the international boat building market during October 2022.

Boatshed has numerous bilateral agreements in place with virtual yacht brokerages, among them Yacht World, Yacht Market and Apollo Duck. “The combination of the physical and virtual boat broking platforms makes it quite understandable as to how Boatshed has over 1.3m registered users and consistently sells over a 1000 boats and yachts per annum,” the Company said.

For further insight into the Boatshed New Build Boat Division (NBBD) please feel free to contact Bruce Stirk on 082 774 5410 or Bruce@BoatshedSouthAfrica.com

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