I did my first virtual viewing yesterday -– it’s great to be back onboard boats!

I was fortunate to list this particular boat with some photographs just before the 'lockdown' so the marketing began with limited photos.

We have received several enquiries and requests to view boats after lockdown restrictions are lifted - the highly detailed information provided with our listings, including the offer to provide a 'virtual viewing' via a video call, means the Boatshed platform lends itself to selling boats to clients from a distance.

This is how we uniquely provide detailed listings for your boat:

  • Unlimited photographs
  • Video walk - throughs externally and internally, plus engine running
  • Virtual Reality VR 360 images
  • 920,000 registered users of the website and more than 4000 new customers in the last 4 week period, means we have a huge database of boat buyers
  • Online signing for contracts – no need to meet and no waiting for the postman

For my first virtual viewing the request came via the 'Book a viewing' request as seen on all of our boat listings.

See image of 'Book a viewing' button on all listings :

The request simply read:

“Good evening, we are hoping to book a viewing with you but due to the pandemic, we were hoping to make it a virtual viewing if that would be possible please? We are free from 14:00 tomorrow, so whenever would be best for you to get down and do a video call if it is convenient for you would be amazing! Thank you in advance”,

I confirmed I could get the keys from the marina office then booked them up for 2pm.

The video call began, everything ran perfectly which we did via Whatsapp video. – it was quite similar to a video - walk through that we do for our listings.. The Clients were extremely grateful for the time and effort spent; they liked the ability to ask me to go in close to the window frames and head linings. I also took along a tape measure, in order to show them lengths of berths and head height, etc.

I was using the latest iphone 11pro

The viewing lasted for 45 minutes - very similar to most usual face- to- face viewings.

“I did come away from the event feeling that this could very much be a new tool to facilitate distance viewings in the future (not just as a result of Covid-19 restrictions), saving clients travel time and/money to make it easier to timetable viewings when all parties are available"

Samantha, Boatshed Portsmouth

This is the client feedback:

“Hi Sam, you did really good! It could be worth looking into possibly Zoom or another video call to experiment with video quality - but was plenty clear and was very informative!

We are both now even more excited, so we will make decision and get back to you ASAP! :D

Thank you again for taking the time to do this viewing, hope you have a good rest of your day!”

Customers

Looking forward to being back on the water, #Staysafe buying boats information