SEAFLEX BUOY MOORING SYSTEM A Market Study in Sweden

Abstract: Sweden is a country surrounded by water and consequently boating is one of the most popular spare time activities in Sweden. The active boating life, in turn, leads to a healthy boating industry in Sweden and boating production plays an important role for the Swedish industry. The company SEAFLEX AB in Umeå is one of these Swedish boating equipment manufacturers. Their new range of mooring product is SEAFLEX mooring buoy system which designed to use SEAFLEX hawser, a unique construction that gives a progressive resistance that reduce all movement in water. SEAFLEX buoy sales very low in spite of a well-established brand and high quality level, and logical property protection, such as patent and trademark. For that reason SEAFLEX needs to investigate SEAFLEX buoy’s business potential in order to increase the sales and explode their business in the Swedish market. By a comprehensively research on chairman or harbor master of private boat clubs from all parts of the country, private boat owners mainly in South and East boating resorts as well as responsible persons of public harbors, this thesis evaluates the business potential of SEAFLEX buoy mooring system in the Swedish market and provides some information that may help SEAFLEX to identify important factors that must be taken into consideration before choosing a competitive marketing strategy. The result of the investigation indicates that in spite of the Swedish mooring buoy market is declining gradually over time and the whole mooring buoy system market is relative small and limited, SEAFLEX buoy does have a bright business potential in the Swedish market. Since the market need actually new product options that provide superior service from installation to technical support and set buoy users free from the fractious maintenance and regular inspection caused by the corroded chains. The market for SEAFLEX buoy now is in the Early Adopter stage and their current customers are Visionaries. But the survey results indicate that it is actually on its way to “cross the chasm” into the mainstream markets. Especially, the company has reduced the price of SEAFLEX buoy. According the result of the survey, price is a decisive importance when pragmatists making their buying decisions, thus, price modification might serve as the catalyst to accelerate the adoption rate.