On Road, Again: RV industry rebuilds market with refitted, new models
Four years ago, Palmetto RV opened a bright, lively retail center in Jedburg selling new travel trailers, campers and accessories.
It was a prime location, right off Interstate 26. The economy was thriving. Gas prices fluctuated but were not routinely at onerous levels.
Then almost overnight, credit dried up as the national financial outlook darkened.
Realizing that change was afoot, company owner Mike Arnau closed the Berkeley County business and relocated to a site off S.C. Highway 41 in Mount Pleasant.
Instead of new campers, motor homes and trailers, the venture purchases used RVs and travel trailers from auctions and private sales, then resurrects them with hardwood floors, stainless appliances, plasma TVs and other goodies. Motor homes that sold for $130,000 or more new in the early to mid 2000s are offered at $30,000 to $70,000.
The six-employee operation has relied on its online presence, shipping or driving models across the country and as far as Australia.
But local interest is growing, said Josh Sisson, general manager who has been employed with the business for seven years.
“We mainly have been an Internet company for so long,” he said. Sales to Charleston area RV enthusiasts make it “a bigger market,” said Sisson, 36, who has eight years experience in custom fabrication.
Sisson runs the venture’s day-to-day operations, provides estimates and schedules subcontractors.
His duties also include teaching classes and bringing in instructors for a novel “school” that Palmetto RV established to teach buyers the ins and outs of their trailers and motor homes. The business teams with the local KOA campground off U.S. Highway 17 North to put on the two-day events, paying the way of out-of-town purchasers’ trips here.
“You get a year’s worth of knowledge in a couple of days,” Arnau says.
Palmetto RV changed its business model to cope with the tough national economic picture. But the financial situation is brightening.
“Banks have loosened up,” he said. South Carolina Federal Credit Union, for one, offers 15 year loans on travel trailers and motor homes. “There is funding out there.”
National reports show that the trailer and motor home industry is rallying.
According to an April report from the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, shipments this year are expected to rise to 263,100 RVs, up 8.6 percent from 2010 total. The forecast is from industry analyst Richard Curtin at University of Michigan.
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Instead of new campers, motor homes and trailers, the venture purchases used RVs and travel trailers from auctions and private sales, then resurrects them with hardwood floors, stainless appliances, plasma TVs and other goodies.
"It's a long way to travel for some members, so we switch the sites from east to west every year." She says that even with the increase in fuel costs, most Good Sam members plan to continue using their motor homes, campers and travel trailers.
People are not as confident about the future as they used to be," Jackson said, adding that people are either holding off on buying motor homes, or they are making do with a used or lower-end motor home or travel trailers or fifth wheels because there
According to Station Order 5560.3B, a recreational vehicle is, "Any vehicle used for pleasure or recreational purposes and is not considered a primary means of transportation; to include but not limited to travel trailers, dirt bikes (off-road
It must have cost them $10K to do that plus the tear-down and set-up, and I never saw a double wide being used by FEMA, they were all fifth wheel and regular travel trailers that I saw in the camps. They also got a lot of flack over formaldehyde in
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