PopUp Industries Inc. started making gooseneck pop-up hitches and adapters in 1998. After getting their feet wet, employees started listening to RV customers to find out their needs and what issues to solve.
Soon, PopUp got into off-set extensions, like short bed offset gooseneck couplers. The couplers make up the supplier’s largest product line today, with 6-, 9-, 12- and 16-inch variations.
In 2007, Young’s Welding, Inc. bought PopUp Industries Inc., including assets, patents and trademarks. The company splits efforts between the gooseneck market and fifth wheel/RV market. Derrick Bruenger, sales and marketing manager at PopUp, said he does not know which the supplier will focus on more moving forward because product offerings always change.
“When sales drop on certain products, we see if they dropped because of price, design, what was the reason?” Bruenger said. “Some recent products dropped in sales because of what manufacturers are putting on as standard equipment.” For example, Pop Up’s number one product for more than a decade was its pin box extenders, RV5s. But OEMs started using pin boxes with cushion or shock absorbers. And since adapters can’t be used on fifth wheels that have pin boxes with movement, the Pop Up developed the RV Goose Coupler.
“We develop new products to replace those slowly becoming obsolete,” Bruenger said. The RV Goose Coupler is a pin box replacement for those who still want to use their truck’s gooseneck ball.
