The unforeseen developments are the ferocity of the competition, the new and additional industries from which competition emanates, coupled with the speed and ease with which information about any and all of it is now available.

But the most profound of these developments is the consequential speed of decision making that follows the increased speed of information availability.

Consolidation is not something new to the US recreational marine market: witness the significant reduction in the numbers of independent boatbuilders over the past decade.

What's different this time is it's happening in the products and services segment of the industry which hitherto had seemed almost invulnerable.

Some of the consolidation and change is the natural result of the drop off in numbers of boats being built because while dollar sales are up, unit sales are down.

This downturn in unit sales might be cyclical, but there is increasing concern about the downturn being permanent as people seek less cash consuming pastimes.

Growth for companies that provide products and services to boatbuilders can only come from acquisition (despite protestations to the contrary, there is no shortage of good innovative products available in this market).

An example of the "natural result" is the acquisitions made by GE Commercial Finance, a provider of new boat inventory financing, of Deutsche Financial Services and Transamerica Commercial Finance.

Both companies are major players in this industry segment. GE says that "such acquisitions provide them with greater depth and expertise in the market that will enable them to provide the market with new and improved financial products".

This may well be true especially for those dealers with excellent credit history but what about GE's appetite for risk and exposure to those whose history is not so good?

Different lenders have different appetites for risk that is evidenced by higher or lower interest rates but each of them has a maximum exposure they will accept. The removal of competing brands and thus interest rates will likely have a negative impact.

Another example of "natural acquisition" is Dometic which bought Taylor Made Environmental (air conditioning) and SeaLand (marine sanitation) to go alongside its marine refrigeration systems and Origo cook tops and stoves.

This new line-up is a powerful combination of recognised brands and products and provides Dometic with an enormous advantage in the supply of the "living" components of boats. It's not hard to understand the potential attraction of this to boatbuilder purchasing teams who could simply inform Dometic of the production schedule of their various models and have complete systems turn up when needed.

It's also not hard to understand the difficulties that will now be faced by equipment manufacturers with limited product group offerings.

Brunswick, one of the largest boatbuilding groups over here has embarked on a major series of acquisitions. The current round started with Northstar Technologies (high end navigational electronics) and Navman (GPS and navigational electronics) followed by Land 'n' Sea and Attwood, both large distributors of accessories and equipment to both the OEM and aftermarket segments of the market.

The ultimate strategic implications of these diverse acquisitions are hard to define at present but certainly seem to indicate that Brunswick (a) does not foresee any significant growth in boat units anytime soon and (b) wants to provide products and services to boat owners.

The net affect of all the acquisition activity over here (which includes West Marine's takeover of rival national chandlery chain Boat US) with its attendant concentration of fire power is that many companies are going to feel - and be - locked out.

This is especially true of equipment and accessory manufacturers and it's worth remembering at this point that there are only two markets in the US, the OEM or boatbuilder market, and the aftermarket or boat owner market.

The inevitable consequence of this is that in the near future equipment and accessory manufacturers are going to start selling direct to the public/boat owners via their Internet web-sites. Why?

The unspoken but primary reason companies do not yet sell direct to the public/boat owners at the moment is their fear of loss of cashflow and orders from the current supply chain of distributors and retailers.

Companies cannot afford the risk of losing cashflow generated by the trade supply chain by developing a direct sales approach to the boat owner, irrespective of the merits of selling direct.

This reason will be removed for the many companies who are locked out of the narrowing distribution supply chain.

With little or no fear of losing trade aftermarket business in the future to contain them, companies will then embark on selling directly to consumers/ boat owners. There are two very compelling reasons to do so: survival and profit margin.

All it will take is one well known brand to go that route and its competitors in that market segment will be forced to follow suit. The flood gates will then be open and we will be involved in an industry that will appear to change on a daily basis.

Consolidation in our industry has not led to such dramatic behaviour before but the Internet was never a factor either.

There was only one route to the aftermarket - representatives to distributors to dealers - and e-commerce was a thing of the future. How times have changed.

The US Department of Commerce announced recently that the estimate of US retail ecommerce sales for the second quarter of 2003 was $12.477 billion, an increase of 27.8% from the second quarter of 2002.

It will come as no surprise to some that recreational marine companies will finally take part in this by now proven process.