West Marine? What's the deal?

[l008com]

There's a West Marine near my house in Woburn MA. It's always been a high end type of store. Meaning clean, way over-staffed, high prices and shelves filled with stuff.

I went in yesterday to pick up new marker lights for my trailer. First time I had been in there in a couple of years. The place was a dump! It honestly looked like it was at the tail end of a going-out-of-business sale, I know these days, certain kinds of items are in high demand, but this was crazy. There were isles picked dry, entire walls with just one or two random items, and half-opened, taped up packaged items scattered around the floor.

So maybe they are going out of business? Or maybe marine supplies are in super short supply? As are people to clean up the shelves? Though there were plenty of employees there like there always are, and there are rarely more than 5 customers in there at a time so I dunno, it was a weird experience. And I'm probably going to have to go back in a few days to get a new roller for my trailer. Hopefully they're not out of those too.

 

[Earl Cordova]

IIRC about 5 years ago, one of the good employees was telling me
they had a major management change, and that he felt they would
run the business into the ground.

Since then the store by me has only one person working at a time,
and they don't know much about boats.

 

[dingbat]

Supply chain shortages are real and going to get worst before getting better

Then there is this….

West Marine acquired by private equity firm | Boating Industry

West Marine, an integrated, omni-channel provider of aftermarket products and services to the boating, fishing, sailing and watersports markets in the

boatingindustry.com