Proven Tips To Market Your Winterization Products

Summer flew by in a blast of heat here in sunny Oregon, and while a few leaves are starting to turn red, they may be covered in snow when you read this column. Thanks to “Game of Thrones,” the phrase “winter is coming” may fill us with dread, but in RV PRO’s September 2025 issue, there was an excellent column by Mel Selway on preparing for winter. He focused on parts and service departments and what products to consider depending on your location. My purpose today is to suggest ways to showcase your winterization product selection.

Placement

Every store has a power aisle. That’s the direction most of your customers head as they walk through your showroom, parts and service areas. Very often it’s the path of least resistance as it’s an easy way to get to where they want to go.

The best way to identify your power aisle is for a week or two, have your employees watch customers as they walk into your location. Label your aisles or areas with a code of numbers, letters or names. As each person comes in, an employee should watch and write down which way they walk. Depending on how much you want to know, create blank templates with the aisle codes plus day and time. The template could even show the overhead aisle plan while the number of visitors to that aisle can be shown in check marks.

There are companies you can pay to do this for you, but there’s no reason why your employees can’t do it equally well. It would definitely help to incentivize them with a reward of time off, money or a gift certificate for the extra work.

A power aisle is often the best location for seasonal products, especially for the winter and summer months. In many other types of retail, holiday merchandise would be prominently placed at the beginning of the power aisle. In your case, stop them with what they need right now to RV safely around the country.

The layout of your dealership will dictate where your winterization products will sell best. If you have separate entrances for parts and service, each area will have its own power aisle. As customers walk in, they should immediately see a section of your fixtures dedicated to winter. This section can begin on the endcaps of either side of the aisle and then run down the aisle, either on one side or both, depending on the quantity and selection of winter goods.

If your power aisle is made up of one side of a gondola and the other side is either a blank wall or lots of windows, even better! That gives you the opportunity to create merchandise displays down that nonfixtured side. These can be stacked neatly in their printed boxes with one piece on top for customers to touch. This works when the boxes are larger and have good graphics.

Other options include merchandise being housed on varying height cube units, multisized tables and open shelving units so the light from the windows shines through. Put nonfading and heat-resistant merchandise on all window-walled fixtures.

Merchandising

Ideally, each fixture group houses one type of merchandise that is oriented toward a goal or solving a problem. For example, wherever your winterization products are located, group the merchandise by its task. Water and system winterizing, storage and sealing, and fuel and engine protection are three examples of tasks that will organize plus educate your customers.

Create “to-go” bundles or kits that make winter shopping decisions easier for your customers who don’t have the time, interest, energy or ability to try to figure out exactly what they need. You can also shrink-wrap all the products together or put them in a basket or box with your logo (also shrink-wrapped) with a winterization label. Make sure each bundle has a hang tag or large sticker that lists exactly what is included. Show the on-floor price of each item and then offer a percentage off for buying the kit. The purpose of the shrink wrap is to make sure a customer doesn’t add or exchange a product. It also makes it easier for your staff as they won’t have to do a manual count of merchandise in each kit while ringing them up.

Identification/Display

One of the best symbols of winter is a snowflake. Even if you’re selling RVs in warm climates, your customers drive everywhere! In Oregon, I can swim outdoors in 80-degree sun, but if I drive down to Crater Lake the next day, I’ll need to bring a puffer jacket and boots for the cold and snow during the summer. The same goes for your customers.

Snowflake decorations are very easy to find online. I have purchased many things over the years from Oriental Trading, and they are a good company. I haven’t purchased from 24 Hour Crafts, but they have great reviews online.

The sparkly snowflakes from Oriental Trading will attract a lot of attention, but beware, the sparkles may get on your merchandise and floor.

The wood cutout flakes from 24 Hour Crafts will need to be painted. I suggest fishing line, a dowel and sawhorses. Support the dowel on the two sawhorses or something similar. Tie lightweight fishing line around each snowflake so they hang from the dowel. Obviously, make sure the area you are spraying in has ventilation and that you won’t be ruining anything in the vicinity. Sadly, I learned that the hard way. Spray lightly on both sides. Once dry, spray lightly again. Two lighter layers keep the paint from running.

Hang a variety of sizes over your winterization area(s). These can hang easily from a suspended ceiling. If your ceiling is white, crisscross two white painted dowels and add a hook on top. Tie varying lengths of fishing line with snowflakes from the dowels. Then, attach the crossed dowels to the ceiling suspension frame with a “suspended ceiling hook clip” easily found online. Hang groupings of odd numbers at different heights. Make sure you hang these no more than 4 feet above the top of your merchandise fixtures. Too high and they will be less visible. These will twirl when people walk by or when the door opens. Movement attracts attention and people will be attracted to your winter displays. (A note of caution: If you have an overnight movement sensor, twirling snowflakes may not be ideal.)

Another option if you decide to buy the wood cutout snowflakes is to mount each one on a thin wooden dowel. The dowel goes into a base of your choosing. If you or someone you know is crafty, consider buying or making wood bases to hold up the dowel and snowflake. If the base is larger, you can hold up three or five at a time. Make sure to use odd numbers and different sizes to make these winter identifiers more interesting. Use a good wood glue to hold the snowflake onto the dowel and to keep it firmly in the drilled hole in the wood base.

Identification/Signage

I have stood in front of a huge display of antifreeze made up of different colors, sizes and labels with absolutely zero idea of what is right for my car, much less an RV. I need you to educate me!

If you have several brands or types of a product, please type up a short blurb on a heavyweight paper informing what this particular brand is good for — pros and cons. This is especially important for RV owners because the wrong chemical product can ruin very expensive machinery. For example: When do you use propylene glycol-based RV/marine antifreeze compared to ethanol based? What are the musts, pros and cons of each type? You may know, but many customers don’t!

Handouts

The last section of Selway’s column was a blue box filled with tips for helping customers winterize their RV. Read it, edit as you see fit for your area and have it printed on 24-pound paper handouts for everyone who walks into your dealership, service and sales areas. Add your logo on top and your contact information in bold type below. This is a gift to your customers and a sales tool for your location. Match your handout paper color to on-floor signage so that the color becomes identifiable as the winter color. Make sure that there is good contrast between the text and the paper color so it’s easy to read. While silvery gray on light blue says “winter,” it also is only readable by people under a certain age.

Now is the time to do this: Winter may not just be coming, it may already be here!