Job losses at Swift
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I see that Willerby homes are also shedding a number of it's employees. Tough times in the caravan trade.
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I'm waiting for the annual 'record crowds/sales' press release we get every year.....
i mentioned in other threads that the continentals were fighting hard to make more inroads into the uk market, with Adria, Hymer, Dethleffs etc introducing sub brands which competed with the lower/mid uk brands yet maintaining the perceived brand qualify.
also, the big thing for 2019 in the continental coachbuilt vans is the offering (in almost all brands) of the U.K. style face-to-face lounge seating...in lieu of the more usual half dinette..
so, a U.K. lounge with the usual choices of twin single, island, transverse or French Bed configs...at a competitive price...
competition is obviously tough (despite sales being high for many recent years) and perhaps something more than a change of upholstery colour is required these days to encourage a customer to buy...
also, the most recent 'quality/satisfaction' surveys mentioned here had plent of foreign competition well to the fore....
cutomers have never had more choice and the typical ik buyers' default choices might not be quite as they were...?
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Well, I certainly would never buy a brand new caravan again, having met a few owners who bought used vans and did very well - hassle of rectifications being carried by those who bought new. As one said, "Let someone else spot the lemon."
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We have bought six new caravans and so far had very little trouble although the last did develop damp after three years and one had a faulty fridge that the dealer changed for us when we told them of the problem.
To me second hand ones fall into two categories. the ones that are good but the owner was trading on and those that have been catastrophic and the lat owner just wanted rid.
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Interesting, and it concerns me that the large UK motorhome manufacturers such as Bailey and maybe some of the smaller ones (Autosleepers etc.) don’t offer a continental style with dinette and large garage. Rather insular and I feel they will suffer as a result.
It is a fault of many UK businesses that they focus on a niche domestic market (Calor?j. Eventually they are likely to fail due to competition from International companies.
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It's called market forces...... punters vote with their feet , be it pitch cost , site availability , quality of product. 👍
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Eventually!
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Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
I think most of us are guilty of this occasionally but maybe our patience is finally running out.
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When I started driving I was not very good, there was a lot to learn but I continued doing the same thing over & over again(as taught) I expected different results-I got different results as I passed my test👍🏻. What did Albert Einstein know eh😂😂
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To my knowledge Swift, like a number of caravan and motorhome manufacturers, have operated an annual Hire and Fire policy based on demand and sometimes the press get hold of it and sometimes they don't.
To my mind this is indicative of why so many new caravans have faults because of the variable percentage of non skilled workforce.
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Actually, if you think about it, it’s just a repeat of Britain’s old car industry. A product gets a name for being unreliable, lots of faults, cannot meet delivery targets, the dealerships selling the products get a bad name for sorting out issues, buyers lose confidence (helped along by other folks who never buy British and swear rightly or wrongly that a product made elsewhere is always better), British workers laid off, company either folds or gets sold abroad, and in reality there are few winners. Rather sad really. Can’t blame the unions of course this time, so a slight variation. And of course the Country’s current international status isn’t helping....😕
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+1, in depth analysis TDA👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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It’s been coming for a while really. Let’s hope it provides a wake up call for the whole British Touring provider industry. I feel deeply for the 15 staff who have been made redundant, they are just the victims of the insatiable drive to churn out often substandard products, they will have been on dreadful contracts, lowish wages, poor employment rights and in this day and age will have known no different. All the quality small caravan builders have either gone or been swallowed up by two or three giants whose total reason for being is now profits and pleasing shareholders. Swift have swallowed up many of the famous brands in their drive onwards, Abbey, Bessacarr, Etc.... and those they didn’t get probably got bought out by Baileys.
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Plus those British builders who did things "well" with inevitably the associated cost were ignored by too many buyers, only focused on the bottom line, so have failed to be viable.
Ours was a Castleton, I suspect there was never a more carefully built caravan, but it came at a cost beyond what many were willing and some able to pay for.
They also suffered from not moving into the better materials and construction technologies becoming available, I suspect because of the small scale of the operation and the ongoing day to day challenges of simply keeping going. After that, with a need for something a bit larger there was simply no alternative coming even close on craftsmanship and we opted to buy into smarter build methods, unfortunately not available here.
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Swift have been building statics for years JVB, they produce some good products in this area and the S Pods are a further development as they take up less room and have innovative interior design features.. Lets hope the industry can survive into the future.
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UK caravan builders don't seem to have the scale of continental builders. It was the same with yacht builders although, in some cases, that is a bit of a specialist bespoke market. Manufacturers like Macwester, Thames Marine and Westerley all went to wall. The volume builders like Beneteau and Jenneau on the continent are still churning out boats.
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Caravan sales are down this year, so a few job losses are inevitable and if the same applies to Europe I would assume they have the same problem. It would be better if they used the staff to increase standards but the bottom line is always what they look at.
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You do indeed see Cheltenham’s up and down, and beautiful old vans they are. Last time we saw one was on a favourite CL. Owners were on their way back from a Cheltenham Rally, having a few days in area. They were a brilliant couple, both in their 80’s, the fact that they were on a grass pitch with no facilities other than a hook up didn’t bother them at all, been doing it all their lives. We had a cup of tea with them and they gave us a good look around the van, which was absolutely lovely, lots of neat homemade ideas. They were rushing off next day as they were taking their other larger Cheltenham to another Rally, this time in France somewhere. The spirit of adventure in that couple was still glowing brightly! 😁
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