West Marine invites innovation to its doors
Photo Credit: Galileo55 - Flickr
June 11, 2012
Filed under Features, Top Stories
WATSONVILLE, Calif. — West Marine will host its latest New Product Review Day on Friday, June 22, at the company’s Watsonville location. The event, now in its 5th year, continues to draw new inventors and entrepreneurs, providing West Marine a simple and effective way to diversify the products it offers.
Ron Japinga, EVP merchandising for West Marine, told Boating Industry that after a burst of excited entrepreneurs at the premier of New Product Review day, each subsequent iteration has managed to bring in a solid group of entrepreneurs and resulted in at least one product being brought to market in West Marine stores, catalogs and through the company’s website.
West Marine has promoted the event through trade magazines and across the Internet, as well as cross-promoted in its stores, but the event has found success without any additional outreach.
“Our primary effort is to make sure we’re supplying high quality boat products, and this gives us the opportunity to do that,” Japinga said. “Our industry has so many great products, but a fair number of entrepreneurs are constantly working to make boating easier and better, and we wanted to tap that avenue.”
As consumers pay more attention to their impact on the environment, entrepreneurs have come out with sustainable boating products to fit the demand, and the New Product Review days are a simple way for West Marine to find the latest green products, the company said.
“Sustainability and products that are better for the environment is something that we’re always looking for,” Japinga noted, “and we’ve seen a few of those.”
Those interested in an appointment to pitch their product should contact West Marine at vendorinfo@westmarine.com and schedule an appointment to attend or demo products.
