Ok they merged, why are their boats so hard to find? The dealers that I have been to say that the merger is no going well. Is the company going down? Looking for insider news here?
Wilderness
What I have heard from some dealers is that they are consolidating some of their production facilities. If I’m not mistaken, they are moving everything from NC or SC…or was it SC to NC!!! Anyway…
I give a lot of credit to Perception
because I knew them when they were Aquaterra. Credit because they brought the first sea kayak to market in the USA…the venerable Chinook or which I have two…maybe not the first but surely the first massed produced to the point that I took notice in 1985 and have been paddling since.
too many boats, too many dealers
with Perception, Dagger, WS, and Mad River (and Mainstream, come to think of it) all coming from one source, they have upwards of 90 different models of boats being manufactured in one facility. The dealer network that has to be serviced by that one facility is huge, which means that some models are gonna be in short supply, especially now that the season is in full swing (looking for a Tsunami 140 now, and you’ll have to take whatever colors are available at the dealer, since ordered boats are 6 -8 weeks out).
Something’s gonna have to give for next year. Either they’ll have to kill off a bunch of boats (which wouldn’t necessarily be bad, if it means that some of the current Perception and Dagger designs got axed), or they’ll have to restrict the number of shops they have selling the product. But trying to be all to everyone sometimes means that no one gets the best that you have to offer, which isn’t a long term winning strategy.