Change is not always improvement [Defender Marine Supply]
- Thread starter peaman
- Start date
For cordage I’ve been happy with service, selection, and price at R & W Rope.
Home | R&W Rope
rwrope.com
Bummer about Defender. PE kills another great business.
bsangs
E35-3 - New Jersey
I purchased some items from Hamilton Marine around Christmas time, and yesterday I received a 1/2-inch thick catalog from them in the mail. I think I saw my credit card smile as I flipped through the pages.
Agree about R & W Rope, but be advised there is a website that calls themselves that, and looks very much like the actual R & W Rope website, but they are not. Google "R & W Rope" and you'll see what I mean.For cordage I’ve been happy with service, selection, and price at R & W Rope.
Home | R&W Rope
Bummer about Defender. PE kills another great business.
According to someone I talked to at R & W, this has been a problem for them. The rwrope.com domain is the proper domain.
MAURIPRO has always done right by me. Their selection tends to be more limited, but occasionally I've found very good deals. Never had problems with shipping, customer service, or returns.
MAURIPRO Sailing & Marine
Shop sailing equipment, sailboat hadware, foul weather gear and sailing gear from key brands as Zhik, Harken, Lewmar and others. Mauripro Sailing, your direct access to sailing solutions.
www.mauriprosailing.com
I was a huge Defender fan and 1st member. Haven't ordered anything from them after the changeover, yet. I am just about to purchase a halyard retainer from them, because they're still the cheapest source for this part. Guess I'll see how it goes. I think WestMarine is likely to get a whole bunch more business from me going forward.
I'll add a few the list of Defender alternatives:
- Lummi fish Supply (now Go2Marine) https://www.go2marine.com/ - Great place if you're in the PNW due to quick shipping.
- Binnacle https://us.binnacle.com/ - Good sales and reasonable shipping. Winches and furlers are usually quite a bit cheaper than any other place I've found.
Is that the online store for LFS? I forgot about them. They do ship really quickly to the NW, even Idaho.
Yup, not sure why they changed. Maybe just distinguishing between the fishing business vs the general boating business. Either way, I've always had really good luck with them.
Marlin Prowell
E34 - Bellingham, WA
LFS has five locations in Alaska, one in Seattle, and the main store in Bellingham. They bought go2marine.com to acquire a better on-line presence. The physical retail stores are still called LFS.
I previously wrote:
"I'm into motorcycles and Fortnine has also been damaged. While technically the purchase was by the Sawaf brothers who run FortNine, there's a Canadian VC group called Novacap behind this all. Novacap bought FortNine mid 2020 and has been squeezing what they could out of it with similar reported changes in customer experience on our motorcycle forum. (advrider.com)
As far as pricing, being a Canadian company alone makes FortNine pricier than their major competitors since most are US based. They're the biggest in Canada and were undercutting other Canadian companies till being bought but they still are pretty close to other Canadian motorcycle parts prices. Motorcycle people were complaining by January 2021 about increasing prices and calls to customer service.
Now suddenly Defender is doing exactly the same thing that happened to FortNine. Pity because I liked and bought from Defender regularly."
That's exactly what they did for FortNine to draw people in. They brought in this young video writer/presenter, Ryan Kluftinger, who is really good and puts out about a video a week. https://www.youtube.com/@FortNine
Great content but the intent was/is to drive potential customers to the business which had become more "big box."
Just to add. The warehouse has been closed for "remodeling" for months now so you can't shop in store, only store pick up or shipped. So I went online last night to purchase an in stock outboard and the only option it gives me is truck delivery at a cost of $225 - what no store pick up option?
Also they use to have their annual spring sales warehouse event about now. I've seen no mention of it this year.
Never mind I've been shopping at WM a lot more and finding deals as well as getting points to spend afterwards.
Also they use to have their annual spring sales warehouse event about now. I've seen no mention of it this year.
Never mind I've been shopping at WM a lot more and finding deals as well as getting points to spend afterwards.
Filkee
Sustaining Member
Defender was always my go to in part because they could ship to Vermont in a day or two and I loved getting the printed catalogue because I’m a relic. Our pathetic little WM in Burlington is usually about half stocked. I ordered a couple packs of disconnects over a week ago using “ship to store” and got an email today saying the package label was printed. Grrrr. A few weeks ago, I ordered something from Hodges and it was here in 48 hour so I’m liking them at the moment.
Bolo
Contributing Partner
Now, don’t laugh, but I’ve recent purchased equipment and parts for my electronics upgrade from…..Amazon. Axiom 7 chart plotter, i50 depth gage, transduce, Raymarine SeaTalk parts and more. All at a decent price with free and quick delivery (I have Amazon Prime). In short, very little hassle and a very searchable purchase history that is far better then even the old Defender site. I still look at Defender, West Marine and the rest before ordering but in many cases can find it on Amazon with a quicker delivery time and equal or sometimes cheaper price.
Filkee
Sustaining Member
Not laughing at all. I’ve done the same and sometimes it’s a vendor you already deal with and they just have an amazon storefront. The one place where I have a little Amazon anxiety is making sure you are getting the thing you searched for. Now it’s everybody’s turn to laugh at me. I ordered a day/night Nicro replacement vent from Amazon. I even searched by the part number on the box from my original. Thought I could just swap out the head and it would be easy. First, the wrong size came so I returned it and then the second one came and it was the right size. I was surprised they’d made so many changes to the design, but I pulled the old sleeve, refilled the holes, drilled fresh ones and it wasn’t until it was finally in that I realized there was no battery because it wasn’t the same model. Me not so smart. But then I realized I always turn the fan off at night anyway.
bsangs
E35-3 - New Jersey
Not laughing either. Use Amazon all the time, just find that it doesn't always carry specialized items needed for sailboats.