Steve Swanson, Owner/General Manager
Hilltop RV Superstore
Escanaba, Mich.

Sales are just starting to pick up, but our spring just arrived. We had snow well into April. In fact, one of our biggest snowstorms of the year was just last week. Overall traffic has picked up, as it has for the past four or five weeks, but especially now.

Aftermarket sales are still a bit weak as compared to last year. That could be relative to the snow, because the people who have their RVs in storage have had a hard time getting them out of storage.
Interest rates have had virtually no effect on sales. It’s not becoming an issue that they’re too high. We wish they would be lower from a retail perspective. It hasn’t affected sales yet at this point.

Overall, from an attitude perspective, gasoline prices have had an effect on our sales. It’s not as severe as it was last year, but we have gotten the impression from our customers that they’re accepting it and getting used to the fact that we’re going to have these kinds of gas prices. A year ago I think they were shocked and they were thinking that maybe prices would come down and they would wait. Now I think they’ve accepted them for what they are and I think they’ve gotten accustomed to it. It’s affected sales, but not as much as last year.

Mike Stewart, General Manager
Keystone RV Center
Greencastle, Penn.

RV sales have picked up here. The weather has helped. We’ve had a mild winter and business has picked up in the last month. This month I’m only at 75 percent of what I did in this month last year, but our open house starts tomorrow. In about two weeks, sales should be way up. Aftermarket sales are good, service is good, parts are running up … things are good. I’ve had to hire a couple of salesmen. That’s a good sign.
Interest rates haven’t had much of an impact on sales. There’s always reasons, and people can blame anything. We’ve brought in our inventory according to customers’ wants. The different pieces I brought in are smaller, instead of bringing in heavy trailers that take big trucks. We’re also selling new and used pop-ups, fifth wheels, Class A, diesel … it’s been a tremendous mix. High end are moving.

We’re watching the market very close. We’re also watching the restaurants and they’re still filled. I think a lot of it is with the election and the media and the hype, that people are still hesitant. Some of the big manufacturers are closed. You may hear horror stories elsewhere, but we’re doing well. We’re tightening up our internal structure due to the market.