In a call to discuss third quarter earnings, Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis said the company will push to grow its brand Good Sam by 10% annually. In addition, the company seeks to open 12-15 stores each year and continue its acquisitions pace.
The company reported its third quarter revenue at $1.9 billion, an increase of 14% from the company’s previous quarterly record. Camping World operates 2,600 service and collision bays, with future plans to add nearly 500 more, not including service bays Camping World will add through acquisitions and new store openings.
“This growth should further enhance our relationships with the key and core RV manufacturers,” Lemonis said. “In the last 12 months, we purchased over $2.3 billion collectively from Thor, Forest River and Winnebago. These manufacturers will enjoy market share growth with our growth, as a result of our ability to identify and grow underserved markets through our internal predictive modeling.”
Lemonis said the most exciting part of the business is Camping World’s move into supplier products to the OEM and aftermarket audiences. The CEO called Lippert and Patrick Industries “amazing” companies that Camping World has very healthy relationships with, yet noted opportunities.
“We feel like there is room for us to play in that space to find other niche opportunities,” Lemonis said, citing categories such as furniture or air conditioners in which Camping World could develop products complementing Lippert and Patrick offerings.
“More importantly, as an added value to our relationship with Thor Forest River and Winnebago, if we can develop something at the same time that other people are working on other things, then the boat rises for everybody,” he said. “Expect our dominance in certain parts of our business to be supported by little twists and turns and improvements that we are making on sourcing, innovation, engineering (and) product development.”
Lemonis said Camping World ramped up the Good Sam RV Valuator tool over the past 15 months, which grew the company’s used inventory to nearly $400 million at the end of Q3. The revamped tool resulted in a 29% increase of used sales for the third quarter.
“We believe there are over 950,000 pre-owned units sold annually between private party sales and dealer sales,” Lemonis said. “Our robust balance sheet, service network, procurement process and web presence are ingredients to achieving our $3 billion in annual used revenue goal. We plan to launch multiple marketplaces to achieve this, including a fully digital and financing marketplace.”
Camping World will launch rvs.com as the digital brand for its used sales network. The Park network, a branded campground network of over 2,000 parks, will expand as well.
“Our plan is to continue our expansion of this network, leveraging all the available assets of our company,” Lemonis said. “Renting an RV through our new Good Sam RV peer-to-peer platform provides a ton of opportunity for us.”
The CEO said Camping World plans to operate the digital platform in select markets during certain seasons to have a rental fleet on-hand.
“That fleet not only grows our relationship with our key manufacturers through purchases,” Lemonis said, “but once RV units retire from the rental fleet they will fuel our pre-owned pipeline.”
