Congratulations..., you're now an official member of the dealer buyers club. Yup, we've observed dealer pricing to be pretty much fixed nationwide.So, I was curious what is the preferred source of parts for your Sunfish? Specifically if you are buying them new - I know we have the wanted/for sale sections on this forum, and there is always ebay and/or craigslist. But, for new parts, where do you go?
I spent some time the other night comparing, and checked the following suppliers:
I found that for the majority of parts, they were all identical pricing, except that Layline Marine offered each part at a small discount to the others. I went into a little more detail in a blog post here.
- Laser Performance, Sunfish Direct, APS, Layline Marine (at their respective websites)
- and my local shop, the Sailboat Garage in Waterford, MI (printed catalog)
Has anyone used Layline? Any thoughts on why they are the only one offering stuff at a discount?
The one major exception is that the Sailboat Garage offers the Tune-a-Fish kit for $106 (less than the $122.50 typical or $118.80 at Layline).
tag
West Coast marine is nice and i got free shipping on my $30 hiking strap from them, i had to wait a week and a half since the part was out of stock but they threw in a hand full of free stickers..
i ordered my hiking strap fastners from Masthead Sailing and they shipped the order to me within 5 days..
i'd recommend both of them.
those are all the dealers i know...
...I was just looking through ebay this evening. It looks to me like, for Sunfish at least, what with sail scalpers and knock-off parts being presented as OEM, that venue has gone from a place for bargains to a place to get fleeced.
my 2¢
West Marine stopped being an official Sunfish dealer about 10 years ago, roughly the same time they merged with a couple of other national boating supply chains in some sort of move to become the Starbucks of boat parts. Now all they carry for Sunfish are aftermarket add-ons and general, non-Sunfish specific sailboat gear.I just talked to the nearest West Marine and she said they don't stock very much Sunfish (or sailboat, for that matter) stuff
Heck, if that's your local supplier it's about the next best thing to living down the road from Laser Performance itself.I'll probably just order stuff from my local shop, the Sailboat Garage.
Did you ask at Sailboat Garage or check the Laser Performance on-line store, maybe even contact a LP sales rep.What kind of stickers? Sunfish ones? I've been meaning to ask where I can get some Sunfish stickers. Anyone else know?
I would not shop on-line where they will not consolidate orders to minimize shipping cost. That's an ebay slick seller / late-night-tv infomercial ploy to inflate prices.I hope to order several things at once to avoid paying extra shipping. I guess you can't always do that, but I'm going to try that route.
I made a small detour on my way home from vacation last week, to make a stop at Torresen Marine (also online at http://www.sunfishdirect.com/... one of the forum's sponsors). Honestly, I was pretty disappointed - they said that Laser Performance hasn't been keeping them stocked very well, but either way... not very impressed by what was there in stock. I blogged a bit more about it here: http://my2fish.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/torresen-marine/