New, secure processes for Brokers, buyers and sellers post lockdown.
17th May 2020.

#Staysafe buying boats with Boatshed
All the team here at Boatshed have responded to the challenges of Coronavirus (Covid-19) and continue to work in an innovative and helpful way to support the interests and needs of all of our customers. Our website has become more active and our brokers remain busy responding to queries, listing exciting new boats and working hard to find new boats for people looking forward to using them, in a new and more secure environment. This is a difficult time for everybody, but whilst so many others are doing so much to help, we too continue to work hard to make any difference we can to all our customers and friends. Stay Safe and we look forward to seeing you as we all safely return to the water.

We are selling boats
Despite the need for us to now work in new, socially secure and distanced ways, the Boatshed group has continued its business of selling boats and finding customers the boats they are looking for. We are benefitting from our unique brokerage web platform and attention to highly detailed listings, alongside attentive customer care. Boatshed has initiated a number of secure measures to respond to the impact of social distancing and the need to stay alert, including establishing safe practices for our business operation and a relaxation of our Quality Control process.

Protecting the health and wellbeing of our customers, brokers and partners is paramount and so we have developed a comprehensive set of guidance and procedures to help us all stay safe buying boats. We have shared these procedures across the Marine sector and you can find our more using the following links:
Information for Customers Buying and Selling Processes
Boatshed Policy for Safe Business Operation

Quality of Information boat listings.
Quality Control is crucial to our ability to sell more boats faster, because it ensures we can sell a high volume of boats, across the globe, according to a standard set of transparent expectations. However, some of our Quality Control guidelines have been relaxed and we are now working with owners remotely where we can, to collect as much information as possible about their boat, including use of their own photographs and images. This secure approach means we are able to introduce new boats to the market all the time. Using a range of adapted procedures we are able to work with our vendors, buyers, relevant partners to ensure all sales are conducted responsibly and subject to the normal conditions and expectations of a boat sale.

We have therefore not been surprised to also see a significant increase in online searches for Boatshed and viewings of our boats. Alongside this, we have also been pleased to see an increase in our registered customer base, seeing an addition of just under 4,500 new customers in a four week period. Altogether, as boat enthusiasts ourselves, these are heartening observations to make as we all begin returning safely to the water.

Boatbid.com (Generating more offers for our boats for sale)
Finally, we were delighted in the activity and interest that our most recent auction generated. You may be aware of our auctions, run under the banner of BoatBid and an ideal additional opportunity to showcase a range of boats and provide buyers a competitive opportunity to buy a vessel that interests them. BoatBid is a unique, online auction, designed to protect and assure buyers and sellers. Purchase contracts, secure deposits and surveys are all part of the BoatBid process, which has successfully sold hundreds of boats since 2008. Buyers can bid with confidence that each boat can be surveyed and sea trialled before you make the final decision to purchase. Our most recent auction saw its highest ever volume of views and activity and we will now build on this increasing popularity with an enhanced and expanded use of the facility. If you would like to know more about BoatBid please follow the link here.

We hope this is useful to everyone, will continue our work helping our customers safely and update this page with any new changes. Stay safe, stay alert and keep enjoying boats.

#staysafebuyingboats