RV manufacturers shipped fewer RVs to dealers in March 2023, dropping by more than 50 percent compared to last March.
Results for the RV Industry Association’s (RVIA) March 2023 survey of manufacturers determined that total RV shipments ended the month with 31,869 units, a decrease of 50.8% from the 64,778 units shipped in March 2022. To date this year, RV shipments are down 54.3% with 78,600 units.
Towable RVs, led by conventional travel trailers, ended the month down 53.7% against last March with 27,404 shipments. More than four times as many travel trailers shipped compared to fifth wheels.
Motorhomes finished the month down 20.2% compared to the same month last year with 4,465 units. Interestingly, more Class B motorhomes shipped for the month than their bigger Class A cousins. Truck camper shipments were off 34.4 percent, from 545 units to 345.
Year to date, towable RV shipments are off 58.2 percent compared to 15.7 percent for motorhomes.
Park model RVs finished February up 42.5% compared to the same month last year, with 540 wholesale shipments.
I can’t say I have a lot of sympathy for RV manufacturers. During the covid years, they increased production to meet customer demands but seemingly did so at the expense of quality. Prices of RVs increased dramatically due to demand. The production levels could not be sustained once covid was less of an issue as people were now free to travel the world again. Many got into RVing as they could not leave the country due to covid. Many found out the RV lifestyle was not for them. And with the current level of inflation, many do not have the financial means to purchase RVs, especially at the increased price of RVs these days. What turned into a gold mine for manufactures for a few years has now gone away.The ones I feel sorry for are the workers at the factories and dealerships, not to mention those that obtained 10 year (or more) loans on RVs that have now badly depreciated in value. Loss of jobs with changing times is an unfortunate consequence.
It had to slow down sometime. It works for me. I hope campgrounds will slow down a bit also, but not holding my breath. They were bad before covid on the west coast.
Are orders down or are they having trouble getting people to want to work? Over the past three years I have traveled I-15 and I-90 multiple times and never saw a RV lot that was lacking in units. I guess there was an issue on the east coast.
Since every dealer lot is full, there is no place to ship them. I would expect to start seeing all these unsold units at a homeless trailer park coming to a big city near you. Check the parking lots at your unused shopping mall. Maybe KOA can make a market in this segment. Homeless and drug addled folks like a nice bounce pit too.
It sounds like over saturation during the Covid “scare”. Real RVers already had RVs. Some may have traded up, as per normal, during those years. The Covid rush of new buyers is over. I don’t think there is any “normal” trading up within those buyers. There are only so many real RV people out there and they are not going rush to get rid of their proven RV for something rushed during Covid. .
Hmm, in DFW, the sales lots of RV dealers are full. What do dealers of RV’s do with them if they set awhile on the lot?
This does not tell the entire story as these are shipments from manfacturers to dealers. Actual sales to customers are down even more. This should have been part of the story to give the full picture of the RV industry and how dire the situation in. Omitting part of the relevant facts is biased reporting. Shame.
While I don’t think it’s “biased,” I do agree that actual registrations is an important part of understanding the whole picture.
To give RVTravel credit, they published these figures separately a while ago.
Another meaningful picture would be 2019 as the baseline. We all know that RV sales went crazy during the pandemic, so discounting those outlier years would be beneficial to see if 2023 results are really in the tank or more comparable to 2019.
Think about the overall economy and the impact on the local communities, whether local dealer businesses or cities where manufacturers are located. How about the employees who have been or will be laid off and perhaps onto the unemployment or welfare rolls? It is unfortunate manufacturers put out lower quality Rv’s – mostly due to the speed of the assembly line. While quality may now increase, local impacts will be hard felt and long lasting.
You get what you vote for.
I’m not saying that politically, I’m saying that as an objective reality on the economic picture for 80% of Americans created by the managerial class for at least 2 decades. RVs in this sample because this is an RV forum. Real estate as a sample in a Real Estate forum and furniture as a sample in a Home Decor forum.
This is the BEST news I’ve seen in a LONG time! LOVE seeing all those unsold RVs gathering dust at those GREEDY RV dealers with their ASININE price gouging and haughty attitudes. Even my local dealer where I had bought two brand new units at full asking price suddenly became distant, arrogant and “too busy” to give me the time of day. Now they can BBQ ’em! 😉
So now the RV manufacturers are shipping “non moving” pieces of crap versus “moving” pieces of crap. Should make KOA happy for it’s “Glamping” units.
Well now maybe they can put back a little quality into the RV’s instead of building the junk they have been for the last few years. NO sympathy. They built junk, inflated the price, and took advantage of buyers.
Agreed! Glad to see it. Maybe the entire industry (campgrounds, camping suppliers, manufacturers) will take note and RVing will become rea$onable again. But I’m not holding my breath. @@
RV manufacturers and Quality are two “mutually exclusive subsets” of the RV build equation.
Now they lay off so they keep their unit to employee level stable which still pushes too many RVs down the line, per worker, with the end result still being junk.
Ahhh so. Maybe some wise manufacturer could open a “new processing camp”: “Bring your made under disaster pandemica” to our new reman-camp.
For only 10% cash, we’ll fix your picklist, upgrade everything to the latest year marketing glamor, & send you away with a smile.