Deluxe Caravans does things differently on a number of fronts. Originally, its focus was as a whitelabel manufacturer. For those unfamiliar with the term, it means it manufactured for other companies. In 2017, the company started to place more emphasis on its own brand, Deluxe, and has gradually been building a name for itself. Deluxe was building very modest numbers until the industry-wide surge in demand in 2020.
NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS
Lakshan Amarasooriya from Deluxe came out with me to do the review. He told me they evaluated the market and decided to make some important strategic decisions based on buyer behaviour. Firstly, in the current environment, they would only build family vans and no couples vans. Deluxe found that the decision cycle for the younger family van demographic is much shorter, and they could meet more customers' needs quickly. Secondly, they discovered that the target market was comfortable with buying vans remotely, as a purely online process. Lakshan explained that it sells direct and despite being Melbourne based, about 70 per cent of its sales are into NSW and Qld. It's not literally a shopping cart scenario, but they do rely heavily on video calls to walk prospective customers through vans prior to purchase and to show build
