Selling marine parts on Shopify is one of the easiest revenue extensions a UK yard can add. Most yards already have the stock, the supplier relationships, and the technical knowledge customers want; Shopify provides the shopfront for £25/month.
The catch is operational. Without integration between Shopify and your workshop system, every online order becomes a manual job: check stock, pick the part, mark the website count down, dispatch, update accounts. Done badly, your e-commerce side will quietly burn an extra half-day of admin per week.
The Problem Most Yards Hit by Month Three
Stock counts drift. Shopify says you have three impellers; the shelf says one; an engineer fitted one to a job card yesterday and nobody updated the website. The customer orders, you can't fulfil, and you refund — and Shopify's algorithm quietly drops you down search results because your fulfilment rate slipped.
Pricing drifts. You change a supplier list price in your workshop system but forget to update Shopify. You sell at the old margin until someone notices.
What Integration Should Do
A proper integration between your DMS and Shopify is two-way. Your catalogue and stock counts push from the DMS to Shopify automatically. Online orders pull from Shopify into the DMS, deducting stock and creating a fulfilment task in the same place your workshop jobs live.
Refunds, returns, and price changes propagate automatically. Nobody re-keys anything.
Marina Yard Manager + Shopify
On the DMS tier (£199/month), the Shopify integration is included and takes about 30 minutes to set up. Pick which catalogue categories should sync to your store, set markup rules per category if you want different online vs trade pricing, and connect.
WooCommerce is supported on the same tier with the same feature set, for yards already running a WordPress site.
Features
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Where Online Parts Sales Actually Pay Off
Mid-range consumables — anodes, impellers, oil filters, antifoul — are the bread and butter. Customers know what they want, search on Google, and buy from whichever yard ranks first and ships fastest. Three or four of these orders a day, at typical UK marine margins, easily covers the DMS tier cost on its own.
Higher-value sales (winches, chartplotters, sails) come more slowly but with much better margins, and they often lead to fitting jobs back at the yard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to switch website providers?
No. If you already have Shopify or WooCommerce, the integration plugs into your existing store. We don't ask you to rebuild your site.
Can I have different prices online vs in the workshop?
Yes. Set per-category markup rules, or override individual SKUs. Trade customers can also have account-specific pricing.
What about postage and shipping rates?
Shopify and WooCommerce handle the customer-facing shipping rates. Marina Yard Manager pulls the chosen rate into the order record so your accounts are accurate.
Written by
Hamish Lowry-Martin
Founder & Lead Developer
With 30 years in IT and 20 years developing business systems, Hamish spent the last decade working closely with marinas and boat yards — watching first-hand how they struggle with outdated tools. That hands-on observation led to Marina Yard Manager.
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