Co-existing with Camping World

If you are a dealer today and you sell aftermarket parts and accessories, Camping World has had an impact on your business. And it makes little difference if the Camping World store is two miles away or two states away. Camping World has an impact on most dealers' aftermarket parts and accessories business.

On one end of the spectrum, Camping World demonstrated that there is a lucrative market for parts and accessories and through aggressive merchandising and marketing techniques it is possible to tap into the desire of the RV user to own these products. Dealers that paid attention and revamped their aftermarket stores using the merchandising methods demonstrated by Camping World reaped some rewards by following Camping World's example. On the other end of the spectrum, Camping World is a tough competitor. When Camping World publishes a price for a product, that pretty much establishes the price industry wide -- that's the price a consumer expects to pay whether he is shopping at Camping World or your store. Since Camping World has some advantages in the way they buy and distribute products and the quantity of products they buy and the margins they work within, it is nearly impossible for a local dealer to have competitive prices on those products without almost acting as a pass-through retailer, in other words, little or no margins or profits.

If a dealer has a problem with Camping World's pricing today, they are not going to like Camping World's latest announcement. Camping World has just reduced prices even more on 500 products in its Spring catalog.

What's a dealer to do?

Some larger dealers have decided to team up with Camping World, rather than competing with them. Lazy Days RV Center in Florida for example made Camping World the aftermarket parts and accessories outlet in its new super-dealership rather than building its own store. Other large dealers are using a variation of this idea and building new dealerships in a complex that includes a Camping World store. When Beaudry RV and Stimac Travel Trailers open their new stores in San Marcos, CA, next summer it will be in a complex with Camping World.

These dealers have made the decision that the advantages of being next to a Camping World store - and the traffic that brings - outweigh the profits that might be gained by operating a parts and accessories store, so they chose to abdicate that business to Camping World.

But that scenario doesn't work for most dealers - so what are the rest supposed to do? It's a dilemma every store with parts and accessories must face. It's obvious that if their parts and accessories business is to survive, they are going to need help from suppliers and distributors. Suppliers can play a large role simply by pricing their products to mass merchandisers at a different level than to two-step distributors. We believe that suppliers and distributors in general have made a genuine effort through various innovative programs to keep the dealer competitive with Camping World.

One answer for the dealer is to focus on brands and product lines that are not available at Camping World. Tom Faludy, president of Carefree of Colorado, stopped selling Camping World a few years ago to give dealers the option of selling a brand that was not available at Camping World. Coast Distribution, as we all know, has been on a crusade for the past five years to develop alternative product lines so dealers can have competitive products at competitive prices that the consumer cannot buy at Camping World. These are only a couple of examples of how suppliers and distributors are addressing the problem; there are others and we are sure other innovative programs will evolve as time passes.

We believe that Camping World is an asset to the industry. They have brought a level of professionalism and respectability to the parts and accessory business that wasn't there before. Undeniably, they are a fierce competitor and have been a thorn in the side of many parts and accessory dealers. The fact of the matter is, Camping World is a force and will continue to impact the RV aftermarket. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that in spite of Camping World's volume, the majority of parts and accessories are still sold through the dealer network.

Having a healthy aftermarket parts and accessory industry is a vital ingredient in the long range success of the entire industry. Suppliers and distributors have a responsibility to make sure the local dealer can survive and prosper.

So what's a dealer to do?

The dealer also has a responsibility -- a responsibility to work with those who are making an effort to keep them competitive and profitable.