I recently read a book called, How to Buy an RV and Save Thousands, by Don Wright who spent 20 yrs writing about the RV industry (Trailer Life, Camping Life, etc.) and also worked in market research for 7 yrs for two of the big RV manuf. - Holiday Rambler and Newmar. He says that dealers typically mark up each of their products between 30-40% earning gross profits between 23-29%. The thing that really got me was the mark-up on the options. Say a factory-installed TV antenna would be marked up about 150% to the dealer because, of course, they are buying those in volume, and then the dealer would add another 75-80% to their price. So I'm thinking that whatever the MSRP is, offering 20-25% lower should be a fair deal, but maybe not. It's really hard to tell how much of a profit a dealer is making on each of these particular trailers. They are definitely different than your typical box trailer. It could be a lot less or maybe not and I wonder how much the freight charges for the dealer are, especially now. Some dealers don't pass that cost onto the customer like EVERY car dealer does. It seems to me the way the TM factory is presenting their product in a way that it is sought after but hard to get (supply and demand) and the consumer is willing to pay more to get it. Does this make sense to anyone? Maybe that is the reason for so few dealers scattered throughout the states. Gotta run.
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
Linda
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