Is this smiling face becoming a little sinister?
I posted before about Affinity marketing and how they basically now own the entire RV business. They own, control, or promote most of the magazines, the largest chain of RV dealers, stores, repair facilities, extended warranty packages, towing services, insurance, campground chains, RV campground guides and rating services, and, well, everything but the manufacture of RVs.
Monopoly practices are not always such a bad thing, if the combination of services an the reduction in overhead result in better products, lower prices, and better service for the consumer.
However, as a charter life member of the Good Sam club, this latest conglomeration gives me some pause. Effective this month, the Good Sam magazine, Highways has been merged with the advertisement booklet of the Camping World President's Club as well as the Coast to Coast RV Resorts Magazine. And the new magazine has lost a lot of writers from the old one - a lot of columns - and gained a lot of advertisements.
In fact, it appears like one long ad, and the "articles" often do little than promote products sold by the various arms of the octopus that is Affinity Marketing. The old Highways at least had some interesting articles, the new magazine is just ads, ads, and more ads.
And what few articles there are, are little more than frightening. For example, one sidebar article congratulates Camping World for being the largest chain of RV dealers - a scary development, as it means that Affinity marketing has an enormous amount of power in the RV business. Other articles tout campgrounds you can go to - Good Sam rated campgrounds, of course - none of those crappy independent ones or KOA campgrounds (a competing chain).
With that kind of power - not only to buy RVs in bulk, but to control the major media outlets in the industry (Trailer Life and Motorhome, in addition to the new Highways) Affinity now has the power to undercut independent dealers and manufacturers unwilling to play ball.
The recent recession has already put a lot of RV dealers and manufacturers out of business. And as a result, Affinity's position is more consolidated than ever.
Like I said, this can be a good thing for consumers - up to a point. In the past, before Camping World existed, getting service and parts for an RV was a dicey proposition. Local RV dealers were often shady characters who sold clapped out used RVs for far more than they were worth, and sold new ones for astronomical prices. Service was expensive and parts were dear - and their attitude as "Hey, whaddya goin' to do about it, chump?" because there was no competition.
Camping World had spacious, well-lit aisles of parts - and plenty of inventory - at well-marked prices, often far below traditional RV dealers. RV dealers were famous for not pricing parts on their shelves, but instead sizing up their customers to see what the would be willing to pay - as a result, they didn't move a lot of inventory and prices remained high. Like with Wal-Mart, everyone at Camping World pays the same price, which is clearly marked.
The unfortunate side effect of this consolidation, however, is that we are being sold an "RV lifestyle" which, as I have noted before, can be staggeringly expensive, if not bankrupting. The magazines all feature multiple slide-out "big rigs" that cost tens of thousands of dollars - if not hundreds of thousands - and are expensive to own and maintain. Perhaps this is where the demand is, but for many of us, RVing means something akin to camping, not driving a house down the road.
And of course, since they own the resort chain, they promote staying in RV resorts, rather than enjoying camping for what it was intended to be - a chance to interact with nature.
You can experience the entire "RV lifestyle" without ever leaving the warm lap of Good Sam and Affinity Marketing. You can buy your RV at Camping World, finance it through Good Sam, get an extended warranty through Good Sam, and even insure it through Good Sam. And of course, you will buy thousands and thousands of dollars of accessories at the Camping World store - many to fix or modify the RV to overcome inherent deficiencies in its design, including suspension upgrades, ventilator upgrades, electronics, storage - you-name-it. Add a satellite dish, get a new awning or patio chairs. Get some little organizer shelves or a sewer hose extension - they have it all!
And once on the road - covered by Good Sam Roadside Assistance, of course, you can head out to a Coast-To-Coast RV resort, for which you have bought a lifetime membership. And good news! It's a Good Sam Park! - highly rated in both the Good Sam Directory and Woodall's and maybe featured prominently in Highways magazine. Relax in your new rig! Read a magazine! Perhaps Motorhome, or Trailer Life. Head off to the annual Samboree and camp out with thousands of other RVers - and check out all the new coaches and accessories available - from sponsoring host, Camping World! Go on a Good Sam caravan to Mexico or Canada!
When the coach breaks down, you can have it repaired at a Camping World store, perhaps covered under your Good Sam extended warranty. And if you have problems with your warranty or repairs, you can write a letter to Highways magazine to complain and perhaps their Help Line will help you straighten it out. And when it is time to sell your rig, you can list it for sale in one of the three RC magazines owned by Affinty, Highways, Motorhome, or Trailer Life and then buy your new one at Camping World again.
In short, you can be an RVer and never give a nickle to anyone, other than for food and fuel, to the folks at Affinity Marketing. And that, to me, is a little scary. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely, and the new format for Highways is a sign of things to come.
Yes, there are other RV options out there - and in fact there is a whole shadow world of other RVs that you rarely see in the RV magazines, because they are not sold by Camping World. Airstreams, for example, remain a cult item and are very expensive coaches. Our little Casita (and similar Scamp) trailers are sold directly at the factory (why not? They have wheels on them) and are similar to Canadian and British lightweight and small rigs that are rarely seen in the States. These options do exist, although, like anything else in life, you have to seek them out - they won't seek you. Most of the good stuff in life works that way.
And there are still plenty of State Parks, County Parks, Corps of Engineers Campgrounds, Forestry Service and National Parks Service campgrounds out there - more spacious and beautiful and less expensive than an "RV Resort" - but then again, the government doesn't have to pay property taxes on all that land, do they? But your smaller rig will fit right in to such places, without having to worry about scratching your "full body paint job" on your $250,000 motorhome.
So, perhaps there is no need to worry about Good Sam taking over the world. For those of us for whom triple-slides and Corian counter-tops are not the main reasons for camping, there are alternatives - much less expensive alternatives - than the Good Sam monopoly. And if you need an RV part, chances are, Camping World just might have it (although I have found better prices just calling the Casita factory for my parts, and they fit better, too!).
But if you want to buy into the idea that spending a quarter-million-dollars on a rapidly depreciating motor coach is a sound investment (and I know three magazines which will reinforce that idea in your head!) you will end up doing business with Affinity marketing, at some time or another.
We love our little Casita. And for the next few years, we plan on using it extensively. But we can see that eventually, we would prefer to just rent a cabin or a vacation home for a couple of months in the Summer, rather than spend thousands and thousands more on a larger RV. There are so many nice places up North, including Canada, where you can stay for weeks or months, for not a lot of money.
So we will probably get out of RVing, eventually, and be thankful that we never made the mistake of trying to "upgrade" to the "ultimate" rig, or try disastrous "full timing". We did that, in the boat business, and it was just a hemorrhaging of cash.
The consolidation of such power in Affinity marketing makes me feel that I am being sold a bill of goods - buy bigger, buy more expensive, move up, upgrade, spend more, and spend it all here! And while this is all very convenient for Affinity Marketing, it doesn't always work in my favor. And in that regard, being a "member" of the Good Sam Club seems less and less like a membership and more and more like one of those, well, affinity marketing schemes - from whence the parent company takes its name.
And I really, really despise being marketing to and manipulated. My gut instinct is to run the other way.
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