The view from behind

A one-stop shop for everything you can tow, Bluewater Trailers looks to keep growth rolling along

Photo (from left): Bluewater Trailers’ James Hartley (shop foreman), Alana Gallaway (vice president) Ryan Van Horne (marketing manager) and Mitch Deborger (owner)

IT’S BEEN SAID many times before: sometimes, location is everything.

It was 2020, Covid was ­shutting the world down and the team at Bluewater Trailers was just about to make a big move from the rural township of Warwick to a new location in Strathroy — a 28-kilometre straight shot east on Highway 402.

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“It was a bit of a nightmare,” recalls vice president Alana Gallaway. “We sent all of our staff home, and we ­basically towed each trailer from Watford to Strathroy with a pickup truck to move all of our inventory.”

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For those first few months, everything was delayed. “The building was delayed for I think six months, so we were working out of office trailers until the building was finished,” Gallaway continues. “We had trailers in two different locations, so sometimes you would sell a trailer and you weren’t sure where it was. We got through it, but yeah, it was rough.”

Patience, however, would pay off. Though it wasn’t immediately ­obvious in April 2020, a trailer boom was developing that would make Bluewater’s relocation — to a larger lot with visibility from the 402 — a wise one.

“Basically, Covid was really good for trailer sales,” Gallaway says. “Things went crazy and you sold whatever you had. You bought from any ­manufacturer that you could get product from just to keep up. We went from six employees to 18 to try to keep up with demand.”

Founded by owner Mitch Deborger in the early 2000s, he began by selling trailers he was building himself on his family’s farm straight out of high school. Over time, demand grew to the point where it made more sense to shift into retail rather than manufacturing, since Deborger was primarily focused on farming.

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“Demand grew pretty quickly in the infancy of Bluewater Trailers,” says marketing manager Ryan Van Horne. “To keep up, [Deborger] had to start connecting with quality manufacturers across North America.”

Today, the company sells and ­services a wide range of trailers, from utility trailers for homeowners to agricultural and commercial trailers of all sizes. Bluewater’s volume ranks among the top five dealerships in the province, but the company strives to maintain the customer service and relationship management of a smaller player.

“There’s a statement Mitch likes using a lot: ‘We want to earn your business before and after the sale,’” Van Horne says. “From sales and warranty to parts to service, it’s a full-circle customer experience, and that’s what brings customers back.”

According to Gallaway, the next move for the Bluewater Trailers is a second location to the east, perhaps Barrie or Oshawa. It will be a new phase for the business, but one that they feel confident entering since they already know their client base is spread throughout the province. Expanding east, they reason, would simply help to meet their customers where they are.

“I was in eastern Ontario and lost count of how many Bluewater Trailers I saw on a four-hour trip,” says Van Horne. “The visibility and the ­customers are already there, so it’s more about growing the brand with a physical space.” Kieran Delamont