Camping World Chairman and CEO Marcus Lemonis said the dealer chain began operating an RV auction site in May. During its early testing stages, the company hosted in-person and virtual auctions.
Camping World auctioned about 500 RVs during its testing. Lemonis said the auction, CW Auctions, and its Good Sam RV Valuator position the dealer chain as an industry leader.
“When you control 20% plus of the new side, and you control the largest portion of the used side,” Lemonis said, “you can create a market through this open, independent process. You now start to establish yourself as the authority, and that is really the investment that we spent.”
Lemonis said the company spent about $7 million to launch the auction site in December. In the past five auctions, Camping World amassed over 2.2 million unique views and hundreds of RV sales during the soft launch.
Chief Operating Officer Matthew Wagner provided additional auction details. He said as Camping World officials dove deeper into the auction launch, they realized the business was much bigger than expected. Wagner said wholesalers, banks, manufacturers and consumers have participated.
In early May, Camping World conducted its first entirely virtual auction. Wagner said Camping World put 35 RVs up for auction and sold 31, with buyers unable to see the RVs in person.
“This is the first time they were bidding on them,” he said, “and for us to successfully sell through that many tells us that we could actually improve this velocity of sales to an even greater extent.”
Wagner said auctions will be conducted at least every other week as operations increase. Auctions could be in-person or entirely virtual.
“I am super excited for this,” Wagner said, “(as) this becomes a true revenue stream and profitable for our business.”
As the business matures, Wagner said CW Auctions will serve as a profitable, cost-effective RV remarketing channel that has not previously been available at scale.
