RPM Marinas owners, Alan and Ann Gordon, have announced their Haliburton location is slated to become one of Yamaha’s “leading showrooms.”
“We’re bringing Yamahas here (from Redkenn RPM) so it will be in the busiest commercial area in the County. We’re doing upgrades on the building in order to brand it as a Yamaha-quality dealership in terms of ambiance through its look and feel,” Ann said last week.
To bring this about, RPM Marinas has been moving out inventory to make way for new stock. Although they sold Wedgewood RPM on Twelve Mile Lake earlier this year, Haliburton RPM, Redkenn RPM and Balsam RPM in Coboconk remain firmly in place.
“We will continue to support our 3,000-customer client base, effectively manage a winterization/storage business of over 1,000 boat/sled customers and provide 600 visitors to the County with rental boats/ sleds so they can enjoy our Haliburton lakes in the summer and sledding in the winter,” Alan said.
Ann said on Oct. 31, “a couple of days ago, we began moving boats off-site in order to make room for the change. We were overstocked in boats and wanted to right size the business, knowing that Yamaha was coming. Kawasaki is still going to be sold out of here, but most of the branding here will be Yamaha, most of the branding at Redkenn will be Kawasaki. Kawasaki will also be down at Balsam.”
Alan added they will still carry other brands, and they understand brand loyalty, but will have less of those product in stock.
Ann said, “we want to announce that this is big news for us and with the sale of Wedgewood RPM, we continue to invest in the marine and powersports business into our 14th year of business in the County.”
Alan said Yamaha has recognized County Road 21 into Haliburton as a “huge commercial area.” He said it took three years to get the deal done. Ann added it’s a more central location, so, “now we’ll be able to better service Minden, Haliburton, Kennisis/ Redstone area and Coboconk areas.”
Alan said they would still be servicing, selling and storing marine and powersports products at Redkenn and Balsam RPM. Ann added the plan is to keep their customer profile up there and Yamaha will still be up at Kennisis, too. “We have added a major extension to storage facilities at the Redkenn RPM location and put new docks in at the Haliburton and Balsam RPM locations over the past four months.”
But for the Haliburton location, Ann said, “we’re going to make this spectacular. We’re basically looking at the business and asking ‘what is right for Haliburton and for us?’ We were in a growth phase. But we’ve sold one marina in the last year, so we’re no longer in a growth phase. I’ve finally convinced Alan, who is 67, that he needs to slow down by bringing everything major into this location. It will allow Alan to be central and on top of everything.”
Alan added, “the whole concept is people come up here to play – we have all the toys. I love this business… 99 per cent of people you’re dealing with are happy to be here, happy to buy toys and they’re excited.”
