First of all brace yourself. What you are about to read is coming from a lifetime of RV and Camper sales, and knowing what dealers do! What I have to tell is more than likely not what you want to hear but it is the truth. The reason I am writing this article is to change the way people are mislead and hopefully start a movement in the RV industry. It needs to happen, if not then I worry for the reputation the RV Dealers and the RV industry in general will get.
Let me start by explaining how it starts.
The dealers are the only ones that buy RV's and campers at wholesale! No matter the ads you read or the place you buy from you can't buy an RV at wholesale price. They then have to pay to have the camper shipped to them. At this point they have the cost of the camper and delivery to start from.
For this example we will use the popular Wildwood 26TBSS. Lets say that a dealer could buy one for 15,000. They then need to pay to have it shipped to them for 500 bucks. Now they have 15,500 invested in this camper. If its a reputable dealer then usually have a tech that goes through the camper and will check it over top to bottom, front to back and side to side for damage, imperfections and to make sure everything works. There is a lot involved in this, trust me. This adds to the price of the camper about 750 bucks. After everything lets say they have 16,500 in this camper they will mark it up enough to make money on the camper and cover the difference between what they say they are going to give you and what they actually do. For example they would put a starting price of 24,000 for this camper.
You then start the haggle process and lets say you bought this brand new for 21,500 and didn't like it after the first year. You go to trade your camper in and you know you just bought it for 21,500 so you think that you would be able to get at least 19,000 for it used right? Well why would they give you 19,000 for something that they could buy brand new for 15,000?
Let me keep going. Now you want to trade up to a bigger camper and this one they bought new for 18,000 so their mark up is more, it's sitting on the lot for 28,000, a 10,000 mark up. The dealers know that you are going to want close to what you paid for your camper so they have to mark up the new ones to give you that much so you feel warm and fuzzy. They say oh we'll give you book value for that no problem.
Here is the catch, they bought it for 18,000. sold it to you for 28,000 and told you they were giving you 19,000 for your used camper. In this deal they know that they could buy your used camper new for 15,000 so they are not going to give more than 13,000 for your used camper value. They told you they were giving you 19,000 so the difference has to come out of the mark up of 10,000 which leaves them buying yours for 13,000 and making 3,000 on the deal. then they will sell yours for 17,000 and make another 3,000 off of your used camper. Not a bad day at the office.
Please don't get me wrong I understand that the dealers have to make money. I would just like them to stop playing the numbers game. In the end it makes the RV industry look bad. I hope this helps when trying to find your used camper value or when you are going to trade it in.
In the end it's all a numbers game. I just don't like the fact that people are mislead to feel good about something but this is the way it is in all big-ticket retail sales.
In closing I have one thing I want you to think about and hopefully it change the way you look at used camper trade value.
If a dealer is going to give you book value for your used camper, they will have to sell it to someone else for more than its worth to make money on it. If they are the type of dealer that is helping people make bad decisions on over priced campers then they are probably helping you make one.
