Is the RV sales boom about to bust? For the second straight month, shipments from RV manufacturers declined over the previous year.
The RV Industry Association’s (RVIA) September survey of manufacturers found that total RV shipments finished September at 30,969, representing a decrease of 29% from the 43,598 units shipped last September. Shipments the previous month had declined 12.5 percent over the previous year.
Towable RVs, led by conventional travel trailers, totaled 27,239 units for the month, a decrease of 29.3% compared to last September’s towable RV shipment total of 38,543. Motorhomes ended September with 3,730 shipments to retailers, down 26.2% compared to last September’s total of 5,055.
Year-to-date wholesale shipments are currently at 378,718 units, up 0.2% compared to this point last year. Towable RVs rose 0.8% to 333,253 units while motorhome shipments were down 3.9% at 45,465 units.
Park model RVs ended the month with 260 wholesale shipments, down 15% compared to last September. To date, park model RVs are down 6.2% with 3,004 shipments.
Dealers and manufacturers overbuilt/overbought with their orders last fall anticipating another record year which is likely to happen. They did not want to get caught short. The sales increase was not as great as expected so they have been discounting heavily since spring. Great for consumers! They are adjusting inventory to more nominal increases rather than the record increases the last 3 years.
A great trend. Now to more than double next months drop!
I just toured Newmar last week,and they explained they build 11 units a day?They had a power outage and are building 12 per day to play catch up.Also they can’t get enough drivers to do the delivering.We saw finished units just sitting waiting for delivery.Newmar does not build on speculation but some companies do.As far as employment,we noticed everyone is hiring.
And an article above this one in the newsletter states. “RV sales at a record breaking high”…
Lol.
Maybe their taking the time to build them so they don’t fall apart.
When gas prices go up, RV sales go down.
It would be helpful to know if there has been a corresponding adjustment (layoffs?) at manufacturers or if decreased shipments are a result of some other factor such as retooling for new models, etc.