RV dealerships across Colorado were limited in operations during Gov. Jared Polis’s stay-at-home order, but as essential businesses, they could still provide some services.
At Centennial RV in Grand Junction, despite decreased staffing and being limited to online, telephone and appointment transactions, there were still sales to make while most people were staying home.
They even helped one medical worker dealing with workplace hazards from COVID-19.
“There was one (customer) who’s a frontline ER nurse in Rifle,” said Centennial General Manager Brad Porter. “She needed a trailer to decontaminate when she was working at the ER there with someone with underlying health conditions at home. Basically, she needed one to park outside so she could stay in the RV where she couldn’t contaminate the rest of the family.”
Despite its staffing being cut by nearly 50%, Centennial kept all of its employees on the payroll, though some decided to take extra time off because of the expected slump in sales as well as personal circumstances.
Another RV dealership in Grand Junction, Bob Scott RVs, was also able to maintain its staffing throughout the month-long shutdown. On top of that, it was one of few local businesses that was able to bring in new employees instead of laying any off.
“Both of my buildings are big enough to keep all the employees social distanced apart,” said Bob Scott General Manager Michael Singer. “I saw it as an opportunity to grow my service department, hire different people to different positions while this corona thing was going on. I found some help that was already trained. Not a whole lot of it, but we’re trying.”
Not only were sales down during the shutdown, but both dealerships’ inventories suffered because of manufacturers closing.
Both businesses are once again welcoming customers (while maintaining social distancing) as part of Mesa County’s safer-at-home partial reopening plan. More people in the Grand Valley are seeking adventures in the outdoors, so sales have increased, especially at Centennial, which, according to Porter, is on pace for one of the best months ever in its 33-year history.
However, the inventory shortage may lead to a mid-summer slump.
“People are wanting to get out, and now that the campgrounds are opened back up, it’s only going to get worse,” Porter said. “I mean, this is good, but all the factories shut down for a month and a half, so all the stuff we have is not really easy to get replaced. I’m afraid there’s going to be an inventory shortage. We’ve always been really good at getting things replaced within a 3-4 week period. Now, we’ve got stuff that might not be replaced before July or August.”
Bob Scott RVs is seeing more business than it did during the shutdown, but Singer still describes it as ‘slow.’
“Our distributor used to run a truck daily from the Eastern Slope,” Singer said. “During the coronavirus, it was only if there was a certain dollar amount bought by each RV dealership. We couldn’t promise our customers one-day or overnight service on that. Manufacturers were shut down, so we couldn’t get all the parts we needed… I went from 160 or 170 units on the lot to about 58 right now. I was thankful when we were able to start opening up and building again, but I’m not sure exactly when I’m going to get my orders.”
Both companies were scheduled to attend The Daily Sentinel’s RV show at the end of March, which was canceled. Without the RV show, both lost a showcasing opportunity.
Centennial didn’t let its preparations for the RV show go entirely to waste, however. Because of the planned pricing for the show, it didn’t have to readjust its strategy during the coronavirus shutdown.
“We priced everything for the RV show for the entire month of March anyway, so what we’ve done throughout the COVID-19 thing is we just left everything at the show price,” Porter said. “We haven’t had to go any lower than the pricing we had planned for March anyway. We just left it out there for a longer period of time.”
Inventory issues could arise this summer, but after the business slump caused by the coronavirus, Porter embraces May’s boom.
“There’s definitely an increase in the past two weeks,” Porter said. “I don’t know the exact number, but it feels like an RV show.”
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