Wavewalk Kayaks

The notion that kayak fishing is booming has been repeated for years by various interested parties, but a search in Google News archives revealed these intriguing facts:

1. From 1990, the number of news articles about kayak fishing kept increasing, and it peaked in 2007.

2. Since 2007, the number of published news articles about kayak fishing has kept decreasing. In fact, the number of news articles about kayak fishing in 2009 was lower than its level in 2004.

This chart was taken from a screen shot of the Google page above:

Interestingly, the number of websites and blogs related to kayak fishing has visibly gone up in the past decade, as part of the media explosion brought by the Internet. In addition, big and small kayak manufacturers have focused on the kayak fishing market in every way they could, and tried to bring the public’s attention to their products by all means.

So what’s the reason for this decrease in media coverage of kayak fishing in the past two years?

The first explanation that comes to mind is that it could be related to the economic recession, but does it make sense? The recreational fishing boat market has been severely hit, but what kayak manufacturers and other vendors and affiliated professionals have been saying is that now, more then ever, a kayak offers a the cheap way to go fishing, and consequently, they expected sales of fishing kayaks and to go through the roof, and interest in kayak fishing to explode. They even promoted the idea of stand-up kayak fishing from their obviously inadequate kayaks, thinking the public would go for it.

However, we think, as we’ve stated in the past, that many kayak anglers quit practicing kayak fishing after some time, as they find it to be less rewarding than they had initially hoped it would be. Usually, the kayak angler’s expectation is to be able to spend a few hours on the water, having fun catching fish, while the reality in many cases is that doing so results in a sore back, an aching butt, and numb legs - on top of being wet, especially if you fish from a SOT kayak.

In other words, a significant proportion of kayak anglers drops from the sport, and it could be that their numbers are now equal to, or exceed the number of new kayak anglers who enter the sport. Consequently, the public’s level of interest in kayak fishing has begun to decline, and the lower level of media exposure reflects this trend.

At Wavewalk, we’ve experienced a totally different reality, with sales increasing year after year at a faster pace, and 2009 being a boom year. Read more >>

This success has to do with the fact that our W kayaks offer a truly good user experience, less fatigue, no back pain or any other physical pain and discomfort, plus they’re stable enough to offer stand-up kayak fishing in confidence and safety.

Related article: Read more about web search trends for kayak fishing >>

2009 was a spectacular year for Wavewalk kayaks -

Our sales this year grew by 64% compared to 2008, which was our best year so far. This is encouraging in view of the continuing slump in the boat and kayak markets, caused by the economic recession.

Our new W500 kayak series turned to be a resounding success, with W500 kayaks taking the lead over the old war horse, the W300.

Most pleasing is the fact that so many W500 clients have taken the time to send us great reviews and stories.

The W500 seems to be a kayak that people simply LOVE, including those who’ve already owned or used a W300 before. As some of these clients have put it: -”Wavewalk took the world’s best kayak and improved on it!”.

Some W anglers go as far as saying the W500 is better than any small fishing boat, and not just fishing kayaks.

This year we expanded our exports, with shipment to clients in Norway and Australia, and increased our sales in New Zealand and Canada. We look at this geographic expansion with particular satisfaction.

In 2009, more clients have ordered a second, and sometimes even a third W kayak from us. This shows to us that once people get used to W kayaks for either paddling or fishing, they’re not likely to change, or go back to an old-fashion sit-in or SOT kayak. In other words, it means we’re on the right track.

Our website wavewalk.com attracted over 150,000 individual visitors this year, including tens of thousands of returning visitors. This is an annual increase of over a third compared to 2008. Our blog is vibrant with stories, pictures, movies, comments and discussions, and has a growing number of fans - some of which aren’t even Wavewalk customers (yet…)  In other words, although we’re still a small company, we’ve already established a significant web presence.

The more we listen to our customers the more we learn, and it helps us improve our products, as well as the service we provide. We would have not succeeded in making the W500 as good as it is without people commenting on their experience with the early models of the W300, and its latest version - the 2008. The blog we introduced in 2008 proved to be an increasingly useful means of communication between our customers and us, as well as between the customers and themselves. This blog is also fun, which is a bonus for everyone

And last but not least - our customers: You people proved to be courageous, patient, creative, supportive, productive and loyal beyond anything we had expected, or deserve . You people made this year great for Wavewalk, and we are very grateful to you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!

Yoav

August marks the beginning of the new fiscal year Wavewalk, and it’s a good time to compare y-o-y performance.
As it stands now, we sold 42% more kayaks in the 2008-9 year (August 1st to July 31st) compared to our previous fiscal year 2007-8, which in itself was pretty good.
The W500 is a big success, and it contributed significantly to this increase.
Overall, the pace of increased sales has been accelerating since 2006, in both our touring and fishing kayak models.

As for our website, another record was broken in July, with 18,638 unique visitors (real, individual people, that is). So far, our website attracted more than 100,000 unique visitors since the beginning of 2009.

Yesterday, July 6th, 754 people visited our website. Most of them arrived from search engines - mainly Google.

Wow!

June was soggy here in Massachusetts - It just kept raining and raining, and sometimes it felt like the monsoon season… -It was also another spectacular month for us, as we sold in it more than twice as many boats as we sold in June of last year.

The second quarter of 2009 (April-June) was fabulous too - we sold more W kayaks in it than in the first half of 2008.

As for the first half of 2009 (January-June), we sold as many boats in this period as we did in the entire year 2008.

It’s hard to tell what’s been causing this continuous increase, but we think it’s basically because more people realize that our W kayaks offer real advantages over ordinary kayaks, for which there is a growing sense of disillusionment. It’s also possible that more people feel comfortable with buying online, especially from a company like Wavewalk that’s been around long enough, and can show a high level of customer satisfaction.

The W500 kayak series we launched two months ago is a best seller, with a high level of customer satisfaction.

Traffic to our website was another record broken this month, with 16,835 unique visitors.

Note that our W kayaks sell in the upper tier of the price range for kayaks, which should have really hurt our sales, as normally high-priced products and services suffer more in times of economic recession.

And just for comparison, here are US Canoe and Kayak Market Statistics for 2006-2008:

Source: National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA)

We didn’t find data that suggest an improvement in this market during the first half of 2009, and we did find information pointing to further deterioration.




Not a big jump since May 27, but it shows that wasn’t a one time peak.

Our kayak sales in March jumped 114% compared to March 2008. This exceeded our best estimates.

We’ll never know what the numbers would have been without the ongoing recession, but they are encouraging even with it, especially considering the slump in the kayak market.

This closes a wonderful first 2009 quarter.  As usual for this time of year, Florida and Texas are leading in the number of orders we got, since the paddling and fishing season begins earlier in these two big southern states.

As far as the website, we had 14,000 individuals visit it in March, which is a little over 60% more than we had in March of last year.

We make this information public for the sake of the W-kayak fans who keep track of what’s going on with their favorite boat.

The new issue of Kayak Angler magazine includes the 2009 buyer’s guide for fishing kayaks. Going through the different brands and models of fishing kayaks featuring in it can be a sobering experience, or an entertaining one, depending on the reader’s mood.

As usual, all kayaks are described as being ’stable and fast’, and many are ‘designed for kayak fishing standing’, which is a misnomer if you consider their real-life capabilities. Obviously, none of this is true, but it seems that over the years we’ve all grown used to such non-truths, so we perceive them as being almost acceptable, which is too bad if you come to think of it.
What some manufacturers allow themselves to write about their fishing kayaks is sometimes unbelievable, not just only in the sense that it doesn’t inspire confidence in them or in their products, but one has to wonder how these manufacturers could have ever imagined that anyone would take their statements seriously. For example, a paddling and poling board manufacturer claims his product is no less than the world’s stablest watercraft… and a manufacturer of inflatable kayaks claims his boat is faster than any other kayak out there…
Merely quoting such nonsense makes one feel uncomfortable, but these are the pathetic facts, and they are representative of the market for fishing kayaks, where mostly over-hyped and under-performing products compete - sometimes in a contest to the next peak of ridicule.

And in case you expected to find useful innovations in kayak fishing, or new and inspired fishing kayaks designs - forget about it, as usual.

Google offers an online, free service that shows trends in searches for key words.

For example, this is the link for a report on searches for the key phrase fishing kayak:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=fishing+kayak&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Interestingly, this report shows that Jacksonville, Florida is the world capital of kayak fishing:

The report also shows that the number of Google searches for this phrase is seasonal, and has remained steady since 2005:

However, when it comes to states, Hawaii leads, and Florida comes second:

Although 2008 was a tough year for the kayak industry, it was a record year for us, and we’re looking forward to another great year in 2009.

The numbers for January 09 are encouraging: Our sales this month topped last year’s January sales by more than 60%, and the number of visitors to our website this month increased by a similar proportion, to more than 10,000 individuals.

Why are we telling this?

Because we think our customers would be interested and pleased to know it, especially those who’ve been supporting us in various ways, and because we’d like to use the opportunity to thank all of them again for choosing our W-kayaks.

We know it’s not always easy to make such a purchase decision, especially for customers who don’t get the chance to test our product, or even see it in real life before ordering it. It’s especially tough in the current economic conditions, where every dollar counts more than it did before.

We also want to show that if what you have to offer is good enough, you can make it even in today’s hostile economic environment.


Five years ago, some kayak distributors were urging kayak manufacturers to produce kayaks that are more fit for fishing. Some manufacturers replied that their existing models were good enough for fishing, and people just had to get used to fishing from narrow and unstable kayaks.

Other manufacturers came up with extra wide kayak models, kayaks outfitted with outriggers, and all sorts of inventions intended to improve the customers’ fishing experience, including pedal drives promising ‘hands free fishing’, and strange hull designs that were supposed to allow stand up fishing in confidence.

All kayak manufacturers kept offering ‘improved’ kayak seats they said would tackle to problems of back pains and leg discomfort.

In reality, customers in 2009 still face a range of inadequate kayaks that don’t solve any of their fundamental problems:

When compared to bigger boats, SOT and sit-in kayaks are still too unstable to provide the same level of confidence required for fishing. Although all manufacturers and vendors claim they have kayak models allowing for fishing standing, their claims are unsubstantiated when closely examined.

As for comfort and ergonomics, the situation is exactly the same as it was five, ten and thirty years ago: namely very bad, with most kayak paddlers and fishermen suffering from discomfort, pain and even injuries, and many who quit kayaking and kayak fishing.

‘Hand free fishing’ is not hands-free as long as the kayak operator has to steer (and track) using hand-activated rudders. More importantly, pedaling in the recumbent position is draining, and therefore less effective than paddling in the long run.

In terms of mobility, there has been a regression, as SOT and sit-in kayaks don’t offer better means to launch, paddle and beach with more ease in more places, but on the contrary - the new outriggers and pedal drives in fact restrain the boat’s mobility.

At Wavewalk we feel encouraged by our customers’ reactions, which confirm that our W-kayak offers true solutions to all these problems, and more.

Overall, 2008 was a banner year for Wavewalk kayaks:

Although the kayak market dropped 8% this year, our sales grew at a strong double-digit rate. Even this holiday season was remarkably good - much better than last year’s.

Traffic to our website increased at a double-digit rate too, with over 100,000 individuals visiting it this year. In average, each visitor spent more time on it than last year’s visitors had.  On its busiest day this year our website received 630 visits. We conclude from these data that people’s interest in our website keeps growing.

The blog we launched in January ‘08 is already a success, being one of our website’s most visited sections.

Customer satisfaction kept growing, and not a single client asked for any refund. Our customers kept sending us good reviews and interesting stories, pictures and movies. Many of them say that our W-kayak is the world’s best one-man fishing boat, even when compared to ‘real boats’, and not just to kayaks and canoes.

Interestingly, this year we had no claims to file against the trucking company that we ship our W-kayaks with.

Things haven’t always been so, which makes us appreciate this success, and care even more about our customers.



Yoav