West Marine

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by GaryMayo

Jamestown Metal Products: Trust As Strong As Steel

Great place to shop.

If you are looking for odd size or specialty nuts, bolts and various fasteners in bronze or stainless, Jamestown is the best source I have found in online marine stores. They are also a good source for teak lumber and prefabbed items.

But I do find their prices for more common items to be a good deal higher than West or Defender but they will also price match.

[foggysail]

The beauty of Jamestown ( a family owned business) is they carry soooo many hard to find items. Many times I have been in their store, they were always helpful with knowledgeable suggestions. I hold them in high regard. Fortunately for me they are within driving distance.

[Rhapsody-NS27]

Originally Posted by GaryMayo

Www.Jamestown.com

Great place to shop.

Jamestown Distributors: Boat Building and Woodworking Supplies

[Bash]

Originally Posted by Auzzee

The only concern is getting the WM purchases across the border to the boat. Any info in that regard will be much appreciated.

You need to get a Temporary Import Permit before leaving Mexico.

Here's info from Noonsite: Mexico — Noonsite

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by foggysail

The beauty of Jamestown ( a family owned business) is they carry soooo many hard to find items. Many times I have been in their store, they were always helpful with knowledgeable suggestions. I hold them in high regard. Fortunately for me they are within driving distance.

Did not know they were a family business but I have called a few times and found whoever answered the phone to be very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. As much as I like Defender I have not had much luck asking technical questions or product advice. Seems like it's up to you to figure out what you need and just order it from Defender.

Getting knowledge and service is definitely worth some extra cost.

[SURV69]

West Marine has pretty much everything a person needs and their staff seems to know quite a bit, but it's all gotten . . . at a price.

Don't forget, not all boaters have a lot of extra money and while the saying goes "B" ring
"O" ut
"A" nother
"T" housand

fact is most boaters don't actually have the "thousands" to actually "bring out". These are probably the ones that complain most about West Marine prices.

[SkiprJohn]

I've found them to be convenient more than anything while I'm in a larger city. We don't have one on our island and if we did it would probably be over in Kona where most the boats are.
It really is easy to pop into the big box store and find most the stuff you need in one place. Some stuff might cost a bit more but their staff is friendly and knowledgeable especially if they know who you are.
kind regards,

[belizesailor]

Always had good experiences with WM when living in the US (its' been a while).

What I found comparison shopping them back then was that most of their prices were pretty competitive (despite all the winning you hear), but that on a few odd items their price would be very high. Not sure if those were errors or some sort of odd pricing strategy. But, just compare the prices and bring it up with WM and they will match.

The used to offer an "outfitting" discount if you were going to spend serious bucks, but don't know if they still do. I think this was up to the discretion of the store manager.

[NorthPacific]

From a canadian user of West Marine. many positive comments but my big gripe is catalog shopping.

Even with stores in Canada West Marine send Catalog stuff from the States. They send using Courier Service. The Border Costs are frightening. Not talking taxes etc but the fees added by the companies. USPS is minimal but to no avail. Have to say Defender is the same. Small companies are much better for cross border shopping in my little bit of the world.

[Jd1]

I am in Canada. Today I had a rather curious experience. I had bought some fenders at WM that I thought were on sale (my mistake, this particular Taylor Made series were not on sale). I decided to look what other companies sold these fenders for in order to reduce the pain in the wallet a bit (they were $72.99 ea. I bought 2). Turns out Jamestown Distributors (US) is selling them for 39.99 ea and Canadian outfit wanted $44.99 ea. Now one of my gripes is that WM will not match a US seller up here in Canada even though we are pretty much at par for the currency but fair enough ... that is why I dug up the Canadian price. The manager at WM looked at the URL I provided to find out if the retailer was an internet shop only but it turns out that they have a Quebec location (what difference does it make, price match means price match). So once we got past that hurdle the next issue was the shipping I would have been charged by the Quebec retailer. At that point I lost it and proceeded to the door to get the fenders to return them. The manager quickly retreated from the freight issue and said that 'whatever makes you happy' and did the price match.
The question I have: Is the freight thing a common issue when people price match to a location away from their home town ????
What would make me happy would be to not have to search the internet and find out that WM severely overpriced the fender (and maybe many other things) to begin with but if they are caught and people want to price match as per their policy, why not do so with a smile ?
As a side note, WM policy states that they do not price match shipping charges but my interpretation of that is that if a retailer offers shipping at $10 for example and WM would charge me $15 then I would be charged $15. I would not interpret it as "we will add shipping charges to any price match we do"

Huh ... what do you know, venting did make me feel better

[xymotic]

I do not know about Canada, I am a former employee here in the states. But that said, it "USED TO BE" the policy to charge freight and match the total price.

That is no longer WM price match Policy, at least here in the states.

[kona74]

Get the Shopsavvy app for your smart phone. It will take a photo of the barcode and search the internet for the lowest available price. WM will match this price. It works and it will save you a bunch-o-money.

[Jd1]

Originally Posted by kona74

Get the Shopsavvy app for your smart phone.

Alas, I am living in the past and only have a dumb cell phone

[rgscpat]

WM has two locations in the Phoenix area; Tempe near Southern & McClinctock and north Phoenix/Peoria on W. Bell Road, but both are somewhat small and most of their business would be from water skiers/boarders and other power boaters -- just the nature of the market.

[xymotic]

Originally Posted by rgscpat

WM has two locations in the Phoenix area; Tempe near Southern & McClinctock and north Phoenix/Peoria on W. Bell Road, but both are somewhat small and most of their business would be from water skiers/boarders and other power boaters -- just the nature of the market.

+1 I will reiterate that the San-Diego stores are some of the best in the country. WAY better store.