RV Mfg's Missing a new market segment
After full timing for two years now and meeting and talking to hundreds of other fellow travelers one thing is apparent to me. The RV Manufacturers are missing or unaware of a significant market se...
Forum Discussion
One of the things about this thread that has baffled me is the mistaken impression that I was personally "looking" for a trailer like this and I can see why that mistaken impression got started with my comment about visiting Some RV dealers to see one.
I am not in the market for a new trailer. When I leave this one it will probably be to return overseas to live again.
But I felt it important that I defend the notion since I brought it up.
IF you go back and re read my original post CAREFULLY and completely you will see that it is posed as a rhetorical question. This was as I have said before based on the many conversations I have had with those that travel like I do with a friend.
We are certainly invisible to most of you because you automatically assume that we are married or at least a couple. This happens to us virtually everywhere. We are constantly correcting this when the opportunity is appropriate...mostly we just let it go.
So it is absolutely NO Surprise to me that most of you just cannot understand that possibly a good number of the folks you come in contact with are actually like me. You just dont realize it.
I could go on about how RV's could be built with interior "modules" so that standard floor plans could be customized at very little extra cost. And I could wax endlessly on the shortcoming of the RV industry that so many here seem to have boundless confidence in. But I will pass up that opportunity.
I think many posters confidence is misplaced and frankly naive. There are Few RV company executives that I have read interviews with or read articles about that strike me as the forward looking types. Mostly they are in a competing game of nothing more than copy cat designs and marketing and build technology scrambling for the same perceived market.
The dismal financial history of this industry, with many many bankruptcies, failed and shuttered companies and abandoned workers should not give one confidence that they are in any way capable of recognizing a trend out there in their own market.
When times are good the industry does well people have surplus income and buy recreational products as is the current case. But every good CEO knows your job is to plan 5,10 or 20 years out, you must be looking forward to slower growth bad financial times and constantly exploring new markets. This is the CEO's job.
I for one just rarely see this in the case of the CEO's of RV Manufacturing companies.
As an example it took the industry more than a few years to catch on to the "smaller is better" trend or downsizing. Belatedly you now find great trailers like the R POD and some other lesser types that cater to this important market segment. No doubt there were those saying at the time...oh that's just a niche market. Those godlike CEO's would know and do it if the market was real. Well it was real and they missed at least two years of great sales opportunity if not more because they were so slow to catch on.
I am not in the market for a new trailer. When I leave this one it will probably be to return overseas to live again.
But I felt it important that I defend the notion since I brought it up.
IF you go back and re read my original post CAREFULLY and completely you will see that it is posed as a rhetorical question. This was as I have said before based on the many conversations I have had with those that travel like I do with a friend.
We are certainly invisible to most of you because you automatically assume that we are married or at least a couple. This happens to us virtually everywhere. We are constantly correcting this when the opportunity is appropriate...mostly we just let it go.
So it is absolutely NO Surprise to me that most of you just cannot understand that possibly a good number of the folks you come in contact with are actually like me. You just dont realize it.
I could go on about how RV's could be built with interior "modules" so that standard floor plans could be customized at very little extra cost. And I could wax endlessly on the shortcoming of the RV industry that so many here seem to have boundless confidence in. But I will pass up that opportunity.
I think many posters confidence is misplaced and frankly naive. There are Few RV company executives that I have read interviews with or read articles about that strike me as the forward looking types. Mostly they are in a competing game of nothing more than copy cat designs and marketing and build technology scrambling for the same perceived market.
The dismal financial history of this industry, with many many bankruptcies, failed and shuttered companies and abandoned workers should not give one confidence that they are in any way capable of recognizing a trend out there in their own market.
When times are good the industry does well people have surplus income and buy recreational products as is the current case. But every good CEO knows your job is to plan 5,10 or 20 years out, you must be looking forward to slower growth bad financial times and constantly exploring new markets. This is the CEO's job.
I for one just rarely see this in the case of the CEO's of RV Manufacturing companies.
As an example it took the industry more than a few years to catch on to the "smaller is better" trend or downsizing. Belatedly you now find great trailers like the R POD and some other lesser types that cater to this important market segment. No doubt there were those saying at the time...oh that's just a niche market. Those godlike CEO's would know and do it if the market was real. Well it was real and they missed at least two years of great sales opportunity if not more because they were so slow to catch on.
