LAKE FOREST, Ill. — In a statement issued yesterday, boats.com, Inc, acknowledged how elated it was upon receiving the Marine Retailers Association of America 2003 Supplier of the Year Award and pledged continued commitment to supporting the needs of the dealer community.

"The Supplier of the Year Award is given to those companies who do positive things for retail dealers" said Phil Keeter, president of the MRAA. "boats.com has never forgotten the importance of the dealers and continues to promote and support them in a number of ways. The recent Wage and Salary survey they conducted on our behalf is just one example."

Dealers signed-up with boats.com have access to some of the most powerful dealer marketing tools available today. In addition to offering advertising services including photo listings displayed in a searchable database of over 80,000 boats for sale, boats.com has dedicated itself to providing dealers with the tools they need to save time, sell more boats and increase their bottom line. The BLAST System (Build Listings And Save Time) utilizes boats.com?s vast database of boat model content and provides dealers with the ability to create listings instantly with only a few clicks. boats.com also provides easy to install framing technology — a convenient way to display all of a dealer?s boat listings "framed" within the dealers own web site. This saves time by eliminating the duplication of effort involved with maintaining two websites and eliminates the overhead of paying a webmaster to maintain multiple databases. Additionally boatsbank (where consumers apply online to multiple lenders) provides dealers with an additional financing resource and paid reserves for closed loans.

"It is all about moving boats" said Don Lewis, president of Aurora Marine, Inc., of Denver, Colo. "Working with boats.com is a good way of moving used boats and they do a good job of marketing their site."

"All of us at boats.com are elated and very proud of this award" said Paul Rabe, president, CEO and co-founder, boats.com, Inc. "It recognizes the efforts the dealer network has made in helping us create our award winning products and services. Their involvement has been vital to our success and we are committed to working with dealers and continuing to develop new and exciting products and services. Our goal is to help dealers sell more boats in an efficient and cost effective manner."

boats.com, Inc. provides marketing services to OEM?s, dealers, brokers and service companies throughout the global recreational marine industry. The company provides an unmatched level of consumer access to information, boat listings, financial and insurance products. With more than 80,000 new and used boat listings from over 5,500 brokers and dealers, boats.com, Inc. is the largest concentration of recreational marine industry marketing in the world.

boats.com represents the manufacturers of more than 90 percent of all new boats in the U.S, along with new and used boat listings from dealers and brokers and an ever growing international presence. boats.com has received the exclusive Internet endorsement of the National Marine Manufacturers Association and MRAA.

YachtWorld, since 1995, has been the premier channel for yacht brokers to list and sell boats over the Internet. YachtWorld features the most comprehensive Multiple Listing System (MLS) in the marine industry, and with listings from more than 105 countries YachtWorld is an integral part of the global brokerage community.