RV Weekly

A new report issued last week by The Conference Board shows just how whacked out debate is growing over the “global warming” issue – and how that debate could have negative consequences for the RV industry.

“Regulation of GHG emissions could significantly increase costs and reduce competitiveness, especially if not applied evenly and equitably around the world. The long-term sustainability of some businesses could be at significant risk,” the report read. “Political pressure for curbing emissions may evolve rapidly and result in a dramatic and disruptive change.”

Charles Bennett, a senior research associate who authored the report, said “Companies must objectively assess their exposure to these risks and realistically consider alternative fuels, materials, technologies, and business processes that will enable them to adapt to changes. Companies need also to seriously consider participating in public policy discussions to be part of whatever ‘solutions’ or ‘rules of the road’ are being designed now.”

It appears the doomsday gnats may be in a position to ruin our picnic.

Let me explain where I’m coming from regarding this myth of global warming. Shortly before I was born, a generation of Americans grew up practicing “duck and cover” drills in preparation for the approaching nuclear holocaust. When I was in high school just 28 years ago, the doomsayers were all a twitter over the devastating impact global cooling would have on our planet.  In fact, my debate team spent an entire year debunking that pending crisis. In the late 1990s, everyone got caught up in the approaching Y2K apocalypse.  Okay, I took some extra cash out of the ATM and stocked up on Fruit Loops before Dec. 31, 1999. But, as long as I have been alive, our planet has been on the verge of destruction from some man-made calamity. Yet, somehow, we’ve survived. It’s as though a truth rules the universe that transcends all understanding.

Here are a few facts that I think the world needs to keep in mind before engaging doomsayers:

First, the planet is not overpopulated.  Believe it or not, we can fit earth’s entire population within the borders of Texas at the density of New York City and still use the rest of the planet to feed them.

Second, the sun causes global warming – not man. Up here in God’s armpit of Wisconsin, the glaciers have been retreating for somewhere around 12,000 years, long before evil gas-sucking SUVs were invented.

Third, exactly how many years was Alaska going to be negatively impacted by the Exxon Valdez disaster? Was it 100 or 1,000? I can’t remember. But the event was 16 years ago and you really have to dig up evidence of the crime – a testimony to the resiliency of nature.

Finally, even if man had the intelligence to destroy the planet, another man (probably an American) would figure out a way to profit by saving it.

If you really want to see how silly this global warming debate has become, check out the image at:  http://rofl.wheresthebeef.co.uk/Sun%20vs%20Earth.jpg. Located 92.9 million miles away, the sun’s volume is 1.3 million times the size of earth. In other words, if the earth is a grain of sand, the sun is a softball 30 feet away; Or, if the earth were an inch in diameter, the sun would be 800,000 miles in diameter. You could fit 1.3 million earths into the diameter of the sun.

Events on the sun, be they sunspots or solar flares, have far more impact on our little tiny planet’s ecosystem than all the cars, tractors and lawn mowers ever invented – and flatulating cows ever conceived.

According to researchers at the University of Hawaii and University of North Dakota, volcanoes release 1.1 trillion pounds of carbon into the atmosphere annually. Oceans and land mass (forests, crops and grass) release 4.84 quadrillion pounds of carbon into the atmosphere annually. The evil automobile releases 0.22 pounds per mile driven. At an average annual use of 12,000 miles, a car will emit 2,660 pounds of “greenhouse gasses” annually.

In other words, it will require the emission of 1.819 trillion automobiles to equal the annual emission of naturally occurring polluters like volcanoes and oceans. In case you’re wondering, that would be require 303 automobiles – or 101 gas-sucking Type A motorhomes – to be driven annually by every man, woman and child on earth.

The Conference Board report suggested that some people or companies which were previously skeptical are becoming increasingly engaged in the discussion of how best to address the issue to assure fairness and ongoing economic prosperity.  This sounds strikingly similar to how corporations must play the political game by donating campaign money to candidates from both parties simply to ensure protection regardless of which candidate wins.

“Many of these trends have been in play for some time,” said Bennett. “But their frequency, pace and profile today are creating an unprecedented convergence and this is transforming the landscape for the issue in the United States.”

RV industry veterans know what happened when government portrayed recreation vehicles as un-American gas guzzlers in the 1970s. The industry collapsed. Left unchallenged, history appears on the brink of repeating itself as environmentalists lay the foundation for portraying RVs as an unnecessary and dangerous threat to our planet’s very survival.

It’s poppycock and it’s time business and industry stopped rolling over and started fighting back. The facts are on our side. Remember, it was roughly 187,975 days ago many of the world’s most brilliant people were convinced Christopher Columbus would fall off the edge of a very flat earth during his attempt to discover a new country.

It takes courage and effort to keep from being sucked into the vortex of negativity that always precedes whatever apocalyptic prediction is being advocated. But can anyone recall an instance where a wide-spread prediction of calamity has ever really come true?

A few days ago, I spoke with an RV dealer who thought he might be going crazy because he just didn’t think something like this could happen in the RV industry.  He presented his case that warranty administrators for RV manufacturers and extended warranty companies are now “shopping the Internet” to find the lowest prices possible for replacement parts. That price becomes THE price they are willing to reimburse dealers to complete a warranty repair.  It matters not whether the dealer will make money on the part — or even if he can get the same part for the same price.  If this is true, the practice adds insult to injury for RV dealers who are already being battered by cyber stores, those “retail outlets” without walls, without standing inventory, without a trained staff and without overhead. These pretend dealers who are happy as clams to receive a 10 percent mark-up for products shipped by distributors directly to customers are the scourge of the RV industry.  Yes, the Internet is a wonderful tool of business. It’s a great way to educate customers and let them know what products and services a dealership can provide. It’s also a great way to let current customers buy parts and accessories 24/7 from the comfort of their living rooms and offices.  

But it takes little business skill or marketing savvy to be able to step in front of a legitimate business and announce to the world that your “company” can sell the same products for $1 less. For an industry that has been preaching customer service for a generation, the fact that these cyber stores are allowed to propagate at all adds even more insult to injury for RV dealers.  Dealers are told that in order to compete they must heavily invest in infrastructure, hire trained staff and pay decent wages to keep them, send their staff to continuing education classes to maintain their skills, pay for their health insurance and give them a well-deserved vacation. Dealers are also told they must design a parts store that looks like the average Shopko, and stock it wide and deep with inventory in order to have parts on hand when customers walk through the door. For being dumb enough to follow the advice, dealers get to make monthly mortgage payments, monthly floorplan payments, annual taxes on property, bi-weekly taxes on payroll, and daily sales taxes on inventory they do manage to sell.  Then, in an effort to recover some of their costs in a market where prices are being set by cyber stores, the dealers feel a need to sell extended warranties on new and used units because we, as an industry, tell them it’s profitable and that the contracts provide peace of mind for their customers.  But, if dealers do sell extended warranties, it appears that some companies roll up the contracts and beat the dealers with them for wanting to charge a reasonable price on replacement parts.   Shame on any wholesale distributor willing to supply a cyber store simply to move products without giving thought to whether that customer can get the item installed, whether the customer knows how to use the item or whether it’s even the right product for the customer’s particular need.  

It wouldn’t surprise me if some “cyber stores” are being operated by the nephews of warranty administrators simply for their ability to set market prices on replacement parts. I can hear the administrator now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Mr. Dealer. This very same part is available at www.cheapestrvpartsever.com for 30 percent less than your sale price. Sorry, if you think we’re being unreasonable, but it’s clear you’re engaging in price gouging. Here’s what we’re going to pay. Take it or leave it.”  The dealer who already invested an exceptional amount of money in advertising to recruit the customer in the first place — instead of paying $8.95 to GoDaddy for a domain name and 2 cents to Google for a click-thru ad – take it in the shorts again. They’ll do it because their conscience requires them to do the right thing in order to keep the industry’s common customers happy.   If this issue is true and the prices charged by cyber stores are being used to set replacement prices in this industry, I’d like to know which companies are behind it. I’ll be happy to shine the light on these cockroaches and send them scurrying back under the rug from which they crawled.   

Here is a prime example of how the Internet can get a firm in trouble when it lets high school students develop the company’s website.

Imagine a supplier company wanting to reach a bunch of dealers in hopes of getting them to carry their product line. The supplier invests tens of thousands of dollars in renting booth space at the Consumer Electronics Show and tens of thousands of dollars renting booth space at the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association show.

The firm flies out a half-dozen staff members to man the booths for a week at a time. They ship tens of thousands of dollars of product to the booth. They spend thousands of dollars creating brochures about their products as well as spec sheets. This company clearly wants to increase their business by attracting the attention of dealers who can carry their product.

But also trolling the show floor is an enterprising magazine editor looking for innovative products that he can feature within the pages of his publication as well as in his soon-to-be-launched online buyers guide. He spends a minute or two chatting with the staff, grabs some information about the product and moves on.

Back in the office, the editor reviews the information again and determines it really would be a great fit for his magazine.  He writes up a little blurb about the item, and then seeks to get a digital image of the product to accompany the text. That’s where the fun starts.

The only contact information on the brochure is a Web address. That’s generally not a problem, in fact it’s often a sign of sophistication – an indication the company knows how to market its products in the 21^st century. In fact, for high-tech mobile electronics industry, an Internet presence is mandatory.

The enterprising editor surfs to the company’s website. First he checks for a news section. Many times companies post new product releases on a special “media” section of their websites where editors can also find links to download photos.  No such luck.

So the editor turns to the company’s “contact us” page in hopes of finding an e-mail address.  E-mail is often the best opportunity to communicate image requests to companies because the requests can be forwarded to the appropriate people who can easily handle the request.  No such luck. All the company offers is a form to fill out requesting more information.

But there is a phone number listed on the page for technical support. It’s unlikely that a technician would have access to a high-resolution digital image, but surely the technician could transfer the editor to someone who could fulfill the request. At the very least, the technician could provide a phone number to the company’s main switchboard.

Amazingly, that would be an incorrect assumption.  The technician is “not allowed” to give out the company’s main telephone number. Nor can he take a message and forward it to someone who can call the editor back. Nor does he know who in his company he can talk to get a digital image. Nor will he allow the editor to speak with his manager because his manager is “busy.”

Surely, the editor thinks, this can’t be happening – not in 2007 in the highly-competitive environment in which businesses today operate. So, he hangs up and tries the number again. A different technician answers, but provides the same general response.

The editor then returns to the company’s “contact us” page where he realizes he’ll have to go through the generally senseless process of filling out the “contact us” form. Based on the editor’s experience, those types of form-generated requests go unanswered for days and weeks – if they are answered at all — and the editor doesn’t really know for sure if his request has been received. The webpage usually says something like “thanks, your request has been processed and we’ll get back to you soon.” Unlike e-mail, where bad addresses can bounce back immediately, the “contact us” forms may be set up so the requests invisibly forward automatically to an e-mail address in the company that is no longer active.

But the editor fills out the form anyway and clicks the submit button.  Immediately, he receives the following e-mail message:

Dear Customer:

Thank you for contacting us. We are currently researching your inquiry and, one of our friendly customer service representatives will be responding to your inquiry within 48 hours. In the event that your message is received on a holiday or over the weekend, a delayed response is to be expected. You may want to check our website for frequently asked questions.

Sincerely,

Customer Service

Seven minutes later, another e-mail arrives. Here’s what it contained:

Valued Customer

Thank you for purchasing from us. It is in our best interest to make sure that your unit works at its best, so that you may enjoy your product. Please contact us at the number listed below for more detailed and better technical support. Please be ready to include a model # and brief description of the problem before calling our tech support number (which is listed below). Please make sure you register your product before calling our customer service number (listed below) for top quality customer service.

For additional questions please check out our FAQ (frequently asked questions) Page to find your answer to your question at (website address).

Thank You
Technical Support Customer Service: 1-888-849-0846      
Alex Ramirez,
Account Executive of Tech Support and Customer Service
1800-938-9886  ext. 8338

Hallelujah!  A phone number!  The editor quickly calls Mr. Ramirez’ number, but it’s for a different company – one contracted to provide, you guessed it, technical support for the product. The editor punches in the extension and get’s a voice mail box for someone other than Mr. Alex Ramirez.  He leaves a rather frustrated message describing that all he is looking for is a picture one of their products.

The editor waits – one, two, three days – for a reply. No luck.

By now the editor is on a mission.  Surely someone in authority at this company would need and want to know how inefficiently it is being operated. The looks to see if the company is publicly traded by checking the Securities and Exchange Commission website. No luck. The company is apparently incorporated under a different name.  He also looks for corporate registrations in California, the state in which the company is located.

The editor also Googles the company name in hopes of finding any link to a company phone number. Although several links come up, all point to the general technical support number.

So, the editor returns to the company’s “contact us” page because he remembers seeing an address on that page. Next, he surfs to www.anywho.com and enters the company name, city and state. Amazingly, there is no phone number listed for that firm.  Next he Googles the street address in hopes of coming up with a phone number. The street address returns hundreds of hits, which suggests the company is leasing space in an industrial complex or an office building. But, a word search of the company name on the first 10 pages of Google returns brings up only one legitimate hit – the “contact us” page of the company’s website.

Exhausted, the editor gives up.  The product will not be featured in his magazine reaching 12,000 RV dealer personnel. Nor will it appear on the online archives accessed by 8,000 unique people a month, nor will it appear in the editor’s new searchable online buyers guide where products will remain active for at least a year.

The editor hopes when Nextar receives a copy of this blog by snail mail at their address in La Verne, Calif., they will realize how absurdly ridiculous their company’s approach to marketing – and media relations – really is. Perhaps they’ll realize how extremely important it is to give people an opportunity to follow up with them after trade shows. And maybe, although I won’t hold my breath, they’ll realize the purpose of a “contact us” page is to allow customers, dealers and other legitimate business partners to truly contact them.

The news today is that Exxon posted a $39.5 billion — with a B — profit last year, making it the largest ever corporate earnings for a single year in U.S. history.

Just how much is a billion?  Here’s a simple explanation.

A million dollars is a stack of freshly printed $1,000 bills stacked four inches high.

A billion dollars is a stack of freshly printed $1,000 bills stacked 33 stories high.

A trillion dollars is a stack of freshly printed $1,000 bills stacked 63 miles high.

In other words, when you hear the government talking about overspending their budget by a trillion dollars, realize that you could drive for an hour over a stack of $1,000 bills at posted highway speeds knowing that every four inches you pass is the equivalent of $1 million.

But, back to Exxon. On my way to work today, I passed an Exxon gas station and instantly realized how sneaky the oil company is — and it’s that craftiness which holds the key to their profitability.

If we adopted the Exxon approach to pricing, the RV industry could also enjoy record profits.  Simply add 9/10th of a cent to everything dealers sell — every part, service work order, new RV, rental hour, etc. You’d be surprised at how quickly things would add up.

The average RV dealer carries about 5,000 SKUs in inventory in the parts store alone. Assume each hook has at least six items on it, and the dealer turns the inventory four times a year. By adopting the Exxon pricing plan, the average dealer would drop $1,080 to the bottom line just on parts sales every year (5,000 x 6 x 4 x .009). Multiply that by 3,500 active RV dealers and the RV industry would enjoy a $3.78 million windfall on parts alone. Now add service hours, LP gas, dump charges, campground registrations, etc., and who knows what could happen. The industry might be able to pool together and buy all the available National R.V. stock.

Well, maybe it’s not a windfall. But can anyone explain why oil companies continue to get away with such deceptive pricing strategies. Perhaps there is someone much older than I who can explain how this practice started in the first place.

The bottom line is that I tip my hat to Exxon and the other oil companies for developing a pricing strategy that collects nearly one penny under the consumer’s radar for each of the 320,500,000 gallons of gasoline sold in America every day. That $2.9 million a day or more than $1 billion a year.

Hopefully the government won’t see this as an exciting new taxing strategy.