Lessons from the Road: The Biggest Challenges Facing RV Dealerships Today

"I'd say the most common challenges I hear are around managing aging inventory. It’s a serious challenge right now—and has been for a couple of years. When you have really high interest rates coupled with inconsistent sales, you can end up with a pretty serious problem.

I'd also say lead flow and generating foot traffic seem to be big challenges everywhere—no matter who you talk to. The internet has changed things. Buyers have so much access to information that they’re doing a lot of shopping and research on their own.

The same applies to dealership stores—foot traffic is down across the board. So, how do you get people into the dealership? And if they’re not going to come to the dealership, how do you get them to your website?"

"Dealerships have different challenges depending on where they're located and what they're doing. But a lot of dealerships experience many of the same things. Everybody, for example, across the industry, is really watching what’s going on with the tariffs right now. And everybody’s keeping an eye on their inventory, their floor plan costs, and things like that.

What we really try to do is work with them to alleviate those pain points. Typically, before we even go on the road, we’ll ask what some of their issues are. If we can get a list ahead of time, that helps us."

"It's the uncertainty in the market. It’s not about the increased costs—they’ve dealt with those for years. They've dealt with recessions and all kinds of problems. It’s the unpredictability: one week’s amazing, the next is terrible. You can’t forecast for it, you can’t plan for it, you can’t staff for it.

That’s the biggest thing I’m seeing across the board. Some people are set to weather the storm, but a lot aren’t. You’re going to see ordering go way down. Inventory is the biggest liability a dealership has—it’s what can put them under. So right now, as 2026 models start coming out next month, that instantly devalues 2025s. And with price increases on 2026s, it’s a double hit. Dealers lose money on 2025s, and even more on 2024s or 2023s—just to get them off the lot.

From an inventory purchasing standpoint, dealers are being very hesitant. Some are over-purchasing, thinking they can beat the price hikes. Others are holding off to see what happens, especially Canadian dealers. Right now, the tariffs only apply to motorized units, not towables—which is good. But parts might still be affected, so repairs could go up 30%.

It’s just the inability to quantify what’s going on. Every dealer has their own way of doing things, and we’ll see some of that play out. "

"The good news is, we always try to support dealers through this. One big focus now is fixed ops absorption—if your service department can cover all your bills, everything else becomes a lot less stressful. As long as you don’t overextend on inventory, and you keep your costs low, that’s a strong position to be in.

We talk to dealers about how to measure that—what data they need, what reports to run. Some incentivize it through pay, others through strategic planning or overhead cuts. It’s about going onsite, listening more than talking, seeing their unique pain points, and helping them get the right information to act.

That’s the blessing and the curse of the RV industry. It’s the Wild West. It’s not like auto, where things are standardized. We were just in a factory last week, and every RV is built by hand, top to bottom. It’s fast-paced, all manual, no automation, no robots. There’s craftsmanship and care, but also variability—because people are involved. And I was honestly impressed by how hard those teams work, running full-speed all day.

That human element means there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. There’s no universal sales tactic, no rulebook. If you don’t know your people, your market, and your business, you’re going to struggle. I saw this firsthand—someone tried to bring a successful Florida dealership model to Portland, Oregon. It didn’t work. They sold both stores within three years.

Every dealership is different. Some of the most profitable stores are small footprints with minimal staff. Meanwhile, we ran one of the biggest service bays in the country, and still might not have been as profitable as those smaller stores. It’s all about knowing your market and running your business accordingly. There’s no template."

"A challenge dealerships are really facing is customer relationship building—maintaining that relationship, keeping communication accurate, and staying on top of everything.

Right now, we’re starting to see a trend toward better communication coming out of the service department. Everyone kind of understands CRM from a sales side, but now it’s shifting to, 'OK, what about service?'

You’ve got a customer with a unit in for service, and they might be waiting weeks or even months for it to be fixed. The most common feedback we hear from dealers is that customers are getting upset because they have no idea what’s going on—where their unit is, what the holdup is, whether it’s waiting on parts, or if it’s something more serious. That lack of communication causes frustration.

Sometimes even a 'no update' update goes a long way. Just keeping the customer informed helps manage expectations. Being able to track and manage that relationship, giving the people working face-to-face with customers the tools to help them do their jobs, is huge."