To Rob & the marine.com Crew:

[WHOOSH]

Rob, congratulations on purchasing the trade name and computer files of Sailnet. I tried to respond to your invitation to post an email to you directly but your AnswerMate system was not working.

In hopes you might see this thread, here is the information I was requesting you provide to those of us who were prior Sailnet customers:
1. Where IS marine.com (its physical presence)?
2. Roughly what percentage of your sales are filled from on-hand inventory (vs. drop shipped from wholesalers & distributors)?
3. Does marine.com plan to continue their returns policy of charging a fee for the return of defective merchandise, out of the box? (I personally have not experienced this from other on-line marine retail vendors).

For those of us who had previously experienced order fulfillment and billing problems with the ''old Sailnet'', hopefully you can understand why we would like to understand a bit more about how marine.com works.

Jack Tyler

[na232]

Rob,
Congrats on acquiring the Sailnet name and all that goes with it. I hope you keep up at least some of the old traditions and let others die. Thanks for remaining "free" and looking forward to doing business with you.

[marinedtcomRob]

Jack,

Thanks for the great post! We''ll fill you all in more about what we''re up to in the coming weeks and months but in general we want input from folks like yourself about what they liked about Sailnet and how we can make it better. It''s no secret that the former owners didn''t have a businsess strategy that sustained itself, let alone made any money. Worse, they apparently closed the business down in the worst way.First and foremost I will tell you, we''re realists, and don''t have a bunch of Venture Capital money we''re itching to burn through. What we''ve done at marine.com has worked. Most of our customers seem to really like the service we offer. Marine.com / Sailnet is located in West Chester, PA and Durham, CT. MindDrivers plays an active role in providing top to bottom active support and management. They are in West Chester, PA. Most orders are processed and a significant percentage are shipped from Durham, CT. Additionally we have a network of distributors we''ve been doing business with for seven years who have an electronic interface to our system and ship for us same day. This provides us to much greater inventory that we can ship for you on a same day basis without having to make you wait while we order product in. Regarding the returns policy you mention, this was never enforced in practice, was written years ago and has been changed on the web site. Thank you for pointing it out. We charge nothing for returns as long as the product is new, unused, in its original packaging and the return is within the 30 day limit.

I understand your conerns given what you and others experienced with the prior ownership. They were a very different operation that started with a lot of Venture Capital "funny money" behind the operation. We''ve grown principally due to internally generated growth using a real world business model. We see tremendous value to the community of sailors in what Sailnet offers. Only by enhancing the value that you the user experience when you come to Sailnet can we have any hope of enhancing the value of our investment of time and money. I myself have a passion for sailing and what goes with sailing. I am confident in the months ahead we will meet and then exceed your expectations. Please feel free to contact me directly should you have additional concerns. I would enjoy speaking with you.

Regards,

Rob Proctor