10/08/2026
A lot of the people looking at your boat online will never submit an inquiry, at least not on the first boat they look at.
That’s one of the more interesting takeaways from recent research by Boats Group, the company behind YachtWorld, Boat Trader, and boats.com. In 2026, Boats Group analyzed more than 85,000 verified boat registrations and compared those purchases with buyer activity and leads across its marketplaces.
Only 21% of the buyers they studied had submitted a documented lead before eventually purchasing a boat.
In other words, a huge portion of the buying process was happening before a seller or broker could clearly see it. Buyers were researching brands, comparing boats and price points, moving between new and used inventory, changing their minds, and eventually making a purchase.
The research gets even more interesting from there. Only 15% of buyers purchased the exact boat they originally inquired about, and the most common path in the study, representing 34% of buyers, was someone who initially inquired about a used boat and later purchased a new one.
That tells us something important about how listing media should be viewed.
A photo or listing film shouldn’t only be judged by whether somebody immediately fills out a lead form underneath that exact boat. Your listing may be one of several boats helping someone figure out what they actually want.
If that buyer is moving between listings, dealers, brands, and price points, the boats that communicate themselves clearly have a better chance of staying in that buyer’s consideration.
That’s where we think video and photography have different jobs.
A good listing film can communicate things that are difficult to understand from a spec sheet alone. How does someone move through the cockpit? How does the salon connect to the exterior? How much room is there around the helm? What does the boat look like underway?
Video gives buyers context, while photos give them control. They can stop on the electronics, upholstery, engines, storage, cabins, finishes, and whatever other details matter most to them. The written listing then fills in the information neither format should try to replace.
There’s also a broader shift toward video that extends beyond the marine industry. Wyzowl’s 2026 consumer research found that 63% of respondents preferred a short video when learning about a product or service, while 89% said video quality affects how much they trust a brand.
That doesn’t mean 89% of yacht buyers will choose one broker because their listing film looks better. That would be stretching the data.
What it does show is that buyers have become extremely comfortable using video to understand products before making decisions. When the product is a boat worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, the quality and depth of the media should reflect that.
We wouldn’t say photography is dead, and we wouldn’t say every listing needs a five-minute cinematic production either. The goal is to give somebody sitting hundreds or thousands of miles away enough information to understand the boat before deciding whether it deserves an in-person showing.
The film gets them oriented. The photography lets them inspect. The listing details fill in the facts.
They should all be telling the same story.
Have a listing coming up? Send us a message and we’ll talk through what actually makes sense for the boat.
