Premium price without premium brand status

 To achieve premium brand/product status, you must first get your brand on the consumer radar and have mass awareness of your brand and product.  The new lifted truck market has existed for over a decade.  With no truck upfit brands and brand status with consumers, they charge premium pricing for their products, even if they use the best components!  Premium brand status comes AFTER establishing your product in the marketplace, and the end consumer dictates it.


FOX's upfit business, in particular, is contracting because dealers have issues moving these products off their lots.  The sizeable overhead expense of having multiple upfit brands stays consistent, and organic growth needs to happen. FOX has increased package pricing dramatically to keep the lights on, pushed pricing above the product pricing ceiling, and is getting ready to sell off the SCA Group.  Yes, dealers set the package pricing charge; however, when you have a $60K MSRP truck with an additional $30K upfit package price add-on.  The consumer is halfway to purchasing a second truck!


FOX has competitors in the branded truck upfit space, which are OEM-approved truck upfitters with bailment programs. A few are American Luxury Coach, Sherrod Trucks, and Waldoch Trucks. These companies have the advantage of being privately owned, not answering Wall Street, and not having massive overhead expenses.  In addition to FOX's overhead, due to the over $328M purchase price paid for the SCA Group, if FOX clears $20M a year in profit from the SCA Group, it will take them 15 years to recoup that purchase price!


With a new lifted truck, the only component that would void the manufacturer's warranty is adding the lift kit to the vehicle.  All other add-ons are cosmetic and wouldn't void the warranty if you added them to the vehicle.  Upfitters must offer a more basic package for buyers at a much lower price to expand their buyer pool.  The upfitters also need to use more off-the-rack components to provide buyers with a more post-sale experience by allowing them a choice of retailers when replacement parts are required.  I've had individuals, and dealers contact me needing one wheel that was exclusively manufactured for an upfitter years ago and is no longer available.  So, you're stuck with purchasing a whole new set of wheels.  Another example is the Reaper truck; I will bet SCA has no Reaper hoods.

The total addressable market for vehicles that could be sold as "new lifted" is over 2.5M units a year.  With almost non-existent growth, the opportunity for growth and scale is tremendous!


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