Lazydays CEO John North said the dealership group bought the real estate at two of its 19 locations in December as part of a long-term plan.
The dealership group purchased real estate at its Elkhart, Indiana, and Nashville stores that the company previously leased. Lazydays now owns 39% of the land its stores are built upon.
“We see further opportunities to acquire more of our real estate through existing purchase options or relocating to new facilities in the future,” North said.
North said the dealership group’s RV inventory remained essentially flat from November to February, hovering around 3,700 RVs across the company. About 72% of the inventory is 2023 model year RVs, he said.
“We were still getting 2022 inventory even into September and October in some cases,” he said. “We have been ahead of this curve since really the late summer.”
North called the 2023 sales performance “pretty okay” and better than the November-December time period. He agreed with other industry experts who said OEMs were enabling dealers to sell through inventory by their recent production slowdowns.
I think as we get into the spring and summer and seasonally pick up, we should continue to see the health of the inventory improve.
“Yes, you have got to discount and be aggressive on your prior model year stuff but the channel is not continuing to be stocked,” he said. “I think as we get into the spring and summer and seasonally pick up, we should continue to see the health of the inventory improve.”
Looking ahead, North said Lazydays would prefer to expand through acquisitions rather than build new stores. New stores take time and funds to build, he said.
“If you are buying an existing location, you have got an installed customer base,” he said. “You have got employees that know the drill. You have got brands that exist in the market.”
One reason to buy stores are the brands the locations carry, North said. Lazydays discovered some “really desirable,” tightly allocated brands which have helped the dealership hold gross profits.
He said the company also recognizes the benefits of clustering locations, such as the new Las Vegas store purchase near Lazydays’ Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, stores.
“We would like to diversify away from our Tampa store a little bit,” he said. “It is a phenomenal store, but it is one-third of our company.”
