Late Wednesday, February 21, Camping World announced the results of its 2023 year-end and fourth quarter (ending December 31, 2023) financial reports. The major takeaway? Camping World reports revenue declines across nearly all aspects of the company business.
Camping World reports revenues for 2023 compared to 2022—The highlights:
- Revenue was $6.2 billion, a decrease of $740.5 million, or 10.6%.
- Used vehicle revenue was a record $2.0 billion, an increase of $102.0 million, or 5.4%; and used vehicle unit sales were a record 56,823 units, an increase of 5,498 units, or 10.7%.
- New vehicle revenue was $2.6 billion, a decline of $651.8 million, or 20.2%; and new vehicle unit sales were 58,731 units, a decrease of 11,698 units, or 16.6%.
- Products, services and other revenue was $870.0 million, a decline of $129.2 million, or 12.9%, driven largely by lower demand and lower stocking levels of lifestyle and activities, and design and home products, as well as decreases in its direct to manufacturer RV furniture revenues due to RV manufacturer production slowdowns and discounting and discontinuation of certain product categories related to its Active Sports Restructuring.
Fourth quarter revenues
Fourth quarter revenues largely mirrored the annual report, except used vehicle revenues, which tanked in comparison to the year-over-year advances.
- Revenue was $1.1 billion for the fourth quarter, a decrease of $171.0 million, or 13.4%.
- Used vehicle revenue was $321.7 million for the fourth quarter, a decrease of $70.9 million, or 18.1%; and used vehicle unit sales were 9,492 units, a decrease of 842 units, or 8.1%.
- New vehicle revenue was $449.4 million for the fourth quarter, a decline of $32.3 million, or 6.7%; and new vehicle unit sales were 10,717 units, an increase of 328 units, or 3.2%.
- Products, services and other revenue was $179.0 million, a decline of $58.3 million, or 24.6%, driven largely by lower demand and lower stocking levels of lifestyle and activities, and design and home products, as well as discounting and discontinuation of certain product categories related to our Active Sports Restructuring.
What about profits?
Camping World’s CEO, Marcus Lemonis, starred in eight seasons of his own reality show, “The Profit.” What about his company’s profits, as shown in the most recent financials? Here are those numbers.
“Gross profit was $1.9 billion, a decrease of $383.6 million, or 17.0%. Total gross margin was 30.2%, a decrease of 230 basis points.” The company’s explanation for this? “The decrease in gross profit and gross margin was driven largely by the decrease in average selling price of new and used vehicles and gross profit was further impacted by the decrease in combined RV unit sales and the related decrease in finance and insurance, net.”
While the bad news was in, some RVers helped. Those who’ve put their own money into some of Camping World’s “fishing holes” helped things to not be as bad as they might. “This decrease was partially offset by the $14.3 million increase in gross profit and 682 basis point increase in gross margin of the Good Sam Services and Plans segment.”
As to profits for the last quarter of 2023? “Gross profit was $343.4 million, a decrease of $48.2 million, or 12.3%. Total gross margin was 31.0%, an increase of 37 basis points. The decrease in gross profit was driven largely by the new and used vehicle discounting.”
The last word—a positive spin
Matt Wagner, Camping World’s Chief Operating Officer, was brought out to put a positive spin on the dismal report. Wagner had the last paragraph of the company’s news release regarding these reports. “Positive demand trends, inventory discipline, strength in our Good Sam segment and the service and parts portion of our business, acquisitions, and cost reductions, give us confidence in delivering unit volume and strong earnings growth in 2024 while continuing our march to 320 locations by 2028.”\
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I have nothing nice to say about Camping World. I believe that the RV Industry would be much better if Marcus wasn’t in it!
Sounds like all the buyouts of smaller independent dealers is starting to bite Marcus in the rear. It was only a matter of time until the unscrupulous sales tactics and poor service operations caught up with him. Took a while for a lot of people to learn the hard way.
The last time we walked into a CW, years ago, we had three different sale people approach us, even though we were only looking at some accessories in the parts area.
BEWARE of the sharks at CW.
Not too sad to see this report…Let’s see what the numbers show, industry wide, and see how CW stacks up against some of the more reputable dealerships and suppliers.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of financials with and without 2023 acquisitions. They won’t divulge those details, but in business it’s always necessary to see if acquisitions are a benefit or drain.
Good Sam must really be a good profit center as under Marcus they’ve killed anything “club” oriented. I get enough in G.S. camping discounts each year to still get many times the cost of my membership back. If not for that I’d have zero reason to have a membership.
Couldn’t you put that information together through their 8K’s posted to the SEC? They also provide 8K access from their website:
0001558370-24-001433 (d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net)
Thanks, Dry Creek, for the link to the SEC page regarding Camping World. Have a great day. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
I’m surprised at that Mikal…MANY times the cost of the membership back?
Thank you, Russ and Tina! Well, what good news, Lemonis bleeding profits slowly. Perhaps Camping World will take a new tack and improve and emphasize customer service as a way to improve profitability. 🙂 Stranger than fiction? 😉
Well, well, well.
The lesson is that competition is good for business, not bad for business. It is the only thing that keeps the bar high and the consumer will organically find a path of lesser resistance every time in every industry when the pain versus value for the acquisition of any product becomes excessive.
There’s a Facebook group called Camping World sucks. Just a short review of some of the stories posted gives some insight of why their numbers are declining.
OK, let’s put this in perspective:
“Gross profit was $1.9 billion, a decrease of $383.6 million, or 17.0%. Total gross margin was 30.2%, a decrease of 230 basis points.”
Despite the slight decrease, this guy’s corporation still managed to wring almost two billion dollars out of unsuspecting customer’s wallets. Like him or not (I am in the camp of “do not” based on his political statements), you still have to admit that his CW franchise is under the column of “Highly Profitable”. A margin of just over 30% is still huge compared to other industries with much, much narrower margins.
Pay $70K for a new RV, sell it to a customer for $100K. That’s quite a markup.
Read their 10Q’s.
I wouldn’t trust CW to fix a kid’s bicycle much less my RV. The one closest to me has demonstrated they don’t know what they are doing when it comes to repairs.
They can explain those numbers all they want but the plain fact is that they are crooks and shysters. Say anything to sell you something. Never back up anything they say. I think camping world is a training ground for politicians myself. Just – ugh. People are voting with their dollars and maybe they are getting the message…
CW made $1.9 billion in profit. There are still a lot of people that have not learned to stay far, far away from CW. Lemonis has the reverse Midas Touch. Everything he touches turns to crap. He has ruined two good RV magazines and removed countless family owned RV dealerships from the map. The bigger CW gets, the more influence it will have on the industry and the more damage it will do. With his wealth and power, Lemonis could be doing so much to improve the industry. Instead, he is taking everything he can for himself and making things worse. Sad situation. My opinion.
Does anyone like Camping World? Based on the comments below, I’d guess not.
I’ve bought a few things from them, and have no complaints, but I’ve never experienced their service, which is what the complaints are mostly about.
At least Lemonis doesn’t support Trump.
Was your last sentence REALLY necessary? You were doing so well stating your position. You wouldn’t by any chance be trolling for a hostile response, were you?
I saw a comment below complaining about Lemonis’ political statements, so I looked into what he has said. The last line of my comment was in response to that. I don’t like to bring politics here either, but given the danger and damage to our country, I felt at least a mild response was justified.
Here is an experience my wife and I had- we went to our local Syracuse, NY CW and it was a HUGE mistake!
The salesman refused to speak to my wife at all. When she would ask him a question ( she mostly did all the research on the RV) the salesman would over talk her. At one point he asked her “to stop talking because CW only allows their salesman to deal with men, so why doesn’t she go wait in our vehicle so the men can talk!” I was not sure that this is the conversation I heard, until my wife backed everything the man said to her. We tried another CW near Albany, and the same conversation happened to my wife. However, this time we taped it! CW hates Women, period! Money saved!!