RV retail sales drop 31% April year over year.

Thermoguy wrote:
Demand is down when campgrounds have availability on a weekend or holiday.

When in the history of camping have campgrounds not been full during holiday weekends?

It's more the shoulder periods where you will see demand reflected in campgrounds. When demand is really high, you will see full campground mid-week and spring/fall.

PButler96 wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:
A friend of mine is an RV transporter, mostly Class A's. He told me he's up to his neck in work, and his boss is paying current drivers a recruiting bonus for bringing in new drivers that also get a signing bonus after 90 days.

Are you inferring that is due to increased sales of RV's? There is a labor shortage due to a host of reasons in the US with the main one being paying people to not work. Transporting RVs has never been a lucrative deal, the drivers are the low man on the totem pole and the RV Industry has not had enough transport drivers forever. The job sucks. 7-11 is paying bonuses for employees too, but it's not due to selling more Slurpees.

Who's paying people not to work? I haven't received any stimulus money since 2020. That moneys long gone. Unemployment levels are at historic lows. Employers can't get help because there's not enough workers for the jobs. Last I saw there were 1.7 jobs for 1 worker. Unemployment is at 3.6%. The normal unemployment rate is 5%.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Dutch_12078 wrote:
A friend of mine is an RV transporter, mostly Class A's. He told me he's up to his neck in work, and his boss is paying current drivers a recruiting bonus for bringing in new drivers that also get a signing bonus after 90 days.

Are you inferring that is due to increased sales of RV's? There is a labor shortage due to a host of reasons in the US with the main one being paying people to not work. Transporting RVs has never been a lucrative deal, the drivers are the low man on the totem pole and the RV Industry has not had enough transport drivers forever. The job sucks. 7-11 is paying bonuses for employees too, but it's not due to selling more Slurpees.

A friend of mine is an RV transporter, mostly Class A's. He told me he's up to his neck in work, and his boss is paying current drivers a recruiting bonus for bringing in new drivers that also get a signing bonus after 90 days.

Demand is down when campgrounds have availability on a weekend or holiday. Until then, the rest is just overstock. People buy because its the cool thing to do but then don't use it, or use it once a year for a while. Increased gas prices have people staying closer to home, not staying home. If people stop driving then the price would go down, supply and demand, people are driving for no reason, therefore the prices stay high....

At a recent RV dealer, lots of units on the lot - lots had sold signs on them. Could be they bought them last year and are just getting them? Not sure.

afidel wrote:
Thor was obviously talking about channel stuffing (forcing dealerships to buy additional inventory to get good pricing or maintain status). They had access to this data well before RVIA released it, they knew where the trend line was headed and were just trying to keep the stock price up long enough for options to vest and for scheduled trades to happen. That announcement was all about making a few executives a bit more money at the expense of shareholders without technically lying enough to get sued.

Not just stock prices but the longer they can keep the appearance of a shortage, people will grab whatever is on the lot for full price and they don't have to give the dealers discounted inventory (or rebates or...what ever marketing term you want to use).

Once word is out that the market is crashing, a lot of buyers are likely to wait and see if the sales numbers and pricing comes down...creating a self fulfilling prophesy as they further reduce demand.

LT Rvers 20+ years will not be affected have seen the same movie before, recession, gas prices, Great Recession, etc. Ignored Covid RV sales hype and doom and gloom gas prices. If you are serious about the lifestyle price drop is a good think, negotiate hard. Fewer RVers fewer crowds.

"Over on the Grand Design forum those in the know said GD is down to 4 days a week and planning a 2 week shutdown in July for a retool.

I'm sure other brands will follow suit eventually if they haven't already."

I believe that! We moved from Elkhart to Shipshewana today and there are a lot of (new) RVs sitting around! There sure seems to be a "robust" inventory around! I guess time will tell for sure but it sure looks like the RV world is going to repeat history, as in '08. :h

Dan

Interesting isn’t a strong enough word. Sad will be a good start, but this fall won’t be the bottom of the market unfortunately. It will not be good though and on that we most all agree. Which is really the bad part as not many things we all y’all agree on !

I have started following a local consignment dealer to gauge the market. PPL Motorhomes has three times as many units for sale than in previous months and they are having more "specials" with reduced prices. This seems to indicate the used market is being inundated and the pricing is falling. It will be interesting when the travel season is over to see where it continues to go.