RVBusiness, July/August 2020

BY TOM FALUDY RV Industry Could Use Crazy Kind of Thinking Suddenly for the first time ever were it and all that right now How long will our time at center stage last It could last forever so long as we believe and present ourselves like we belong there Were not an anomaly Were not the best vacation option because someone ate a bat weve always been a best option RVBUSINESS GUESTVIEW I n my January 2018 RVBusiness Guest View article I challenged our industry to be less exulted by our incremental gains over historic shipment numbers and more focused on the fact were ever less a fraction of what our future state numbers should be Lets start with the delta between your notion of high your quantifiable vision of what this industry should be shipping annually relative to its potential against the number I proposed two years ago of 15 million units But that was two years ago That was before COVID 19 Now my number is BIGGER Lets put that crazy 10 year goal of 15 million annual shipments in perspective by considering what the industry has achieved over the past 30 years In the 90s our lowest year was 163000 units while the highest was 321000 an average of 240000 And we surpassed 250000 units three times in that decade In the 2010 s our lowest year was 242000 our highest 505000 our average totaling about 366000 while shipments were above 400000 two times and above 500K once in 2017 you know the year we all concluded we oversupplied the market so this number was not reflective of demand From 2000 to 2009 then our lowest year was 166000 our highest 391000 the average being 309000 In the process we surpassed 300000 seven times So over the past three decades we managed to grow total shipments by an average of 60000 units per decade while the percentage of American households buying new RVs annually increased from about 024 to 03 of all households meaning our market penetration improved by 25 and our average wholesale shipments 30 RVBusiness J U L Y A U G U S T 2 0 2 0 grew about 50 as the U S population grew 32 Are you high fiving this performance Thats 483000 RVs in 2018 406000 in 2019 and who knows 300000 to 340000 in 2020 Fist bumps all around Do you we all think this is good enough selling as much as the market wants or needs Could we make more people want and afford RVs In other words is demand pretty finite as in not up to us or is there a crazy outside the box take on all of this Where is crazy in our equation Henry Ford had a crazy idea back in the day He saw cars as something everyone would want with the crazy part being his vision that everyone should be able to afford one Without that vision there would have been no need to invent mass production In the same vein Mike Lindell back in 2007 also had a wild idea He was convinced everyone in America needed at least one of his My Pillow products So he opened shop in 2009 with five employees Today he has 1500 Hes not only sold about 41 million pillows since then but is still advertising like crazy intent on selling hundreds of millions more so you and I can get a better nights sleep So how about applying that no holdsbarred approach to the RV business Consider that the RV industry employs about 70000 workers in Elkhart County alone many of whom would probably qualify as typical buyers Maybe we ought to find out what percent of them own RVs How many would want one or could afford at least an entry level RV Do we know Have we asked them considering theres probably no more readily available source of market research than them Do we know whats keeping them from ownership If so what are we doing about it If not why dont we find out Are we being driven by a maniacal undeniable vision of an RV for every family overcoming every hurdle every challenge between status quo and our convictions Just as I would think we would be intent on every American who has leisure time to have better safer more convenient and frequent vacations Today one out of every eight Americans after 11 years sleeps on a My Pillow One out of every 17 American households owns a second home One out of every 11 households owns a boat while one out of every 14 owns an RV Some 25 million Americans go RVing and 42 million go tent camping Should we really be making ourselves feel better statistically by observing that our current shipment performance ranks within the top five of our last 40 years Or should we order up a Big Gulp of Insanity and fortify ourselves to understand and commit to our actual potential and Go Big as an industry Fact is theres never been a better time to do it COVID changed everything More specifically it changed the psyche of consumers expanded our market and provided an unprecedented boost to the appeal of RVs versus other means of leisure travel Being shut down and shut in has evidently changed us The more isolated we got the more we longed to get out and connect The more Netflix we watched the more we longed to script our own stories and create our own adventures The more conscious we got about our own health the more aware we became about the health of our world and connecting with the great outdoors RVs are a ticket to all that continued on page 54 Tom Faludy vice president global growth strategy for Lippert Components Inc is a former RVIA board member and a co founder and first chair of the industrys Go RVing marketing program An RV MH Hall of Fame inductee he previously served as executive vice president of Berkshire Hathaways Scott Fetzer and as a director of Jayco Inc and Coast Distribution Faludy currently chairs Australias Ryan Family Group and is an advisor to the CEO of California Acrylic Industries dba CAL SPAS in Pomona Calif