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rv product review

Improve Your RV Key and Lock Vulnerability

Hi, I’m Chris Carpenter. I’m the manager of business development for Creative Products Group which is the aftermarket division of Global Link Distribution; Global Link being the tier one OEM supplier, Creative Products Group taking care of all the after-market supply chain. So, as you can see behind us, we’ve got about 125,000 square feet of product. Global Link and Creative Products Group is the premier supplier of a bunch of stuff. Our claim to fame is locks and keys. We also are the tier one supplier for fasteners and screws. About 25% of our warehouse is nothing but screws. We also supply a plethora of other stuff. Creative Products Group takes care of things like the B&B Molders line. We also supply a lot of plumbing and other hardware items for other companies.

David Gingerich: Well, it started off with three guys: Rocky Anderson, David Pairitz, and Keith Howard. They kind of got together and decided to start their own thing but it started off just as an import company. They started off from just a little warehouse. To get started, just to start generating capital, they were selling tires for, like, ARCA racing and NASCAR racing-type of thing, and then, as it went, it grew, and started our OEM business and then it just kept growing from there.

Chris: On the aftermarket side, our main thing is replacement or upgrade locks for the RVs. And that goes everywhere from entry door locks to baggage locks to even the little round silver cam locks. The other thing is, is we sell about 100,000 replacement keys a year so if you lose a key, you can’t just go to a locksmith and get an RV key cut. It’s hard for them to find blanks that’ll fit our stuff. We do sell blanks to a lot of locksmiths.

Chris: Just wanted to show everyone the replacement keys that we have in stock. We are the premier supplier for replacement precut keys. You don’t have to go to a locksmith and have ’em cut. Just give us a call or go on our website and order the keys. We have ’em for most brands except for one. As you can see, we have a lot of the purple keys that represent about 80% of your total market.

David: Some of the other products that we deal with, there’s a lot of, like, kitchen hardware items, bath hardware items, closet door hardware items, things like that. And if you have an older unit, you have a lot of brass kind of finishes and things like that, so if you come to our website and you can take a look on there, there’s a lot of stuff that you can upgrade to new finishes that are a little bit more sleek and look a little bit better so you can upgrade your RV really easy just by looking around with that kind of stuff. Chris: We also offer some programs like keying your RV alike so if you’ve got two entry doors and you have two different doors, they never seem to be keyed the same. We can offer you a program where you can take the cylinders out of one door and match the front door. Now you’ve got one key that fits both doors. It’s not necessarily just the convenience of having one key for your entire unit, but it’s also the security. So you’ve got the security of not having the exact same key as 80% of the other RVers in the campground. 

We always like to mention the most popular, the CH751 key. I would guess if you have that 751 key on your keyring, if you’re sitting around a campground with ten other guys having a cold drink, nine of ’em have have that 751 key on their ring as well. And that’s mainly the cam locks, the little round silver locks, and they’re all keyed the same. We used to–I’m an older guy, as you can tell, but in the old days we only kept beer and firewood in there. We didn’t care. Now we have $1000 batteries and $1500 satellite dishes and $200 sewer hoses. It’s a lot more important. So what we offer is an option to either take those cylinder, and on those 751 cam locks you’ve gotta replace the lock, but we’re talking $15. You can replace the lock, and if you happen to have a Global brand, an entry door lock, with a G300 key code, we can key to that G300 number as well. The whole idea is to get one key on your keyring that fits everything on your RV. The convenience is wild.

One of the other issues when you have two doors, two entry doors, if you happen to have those, chances are they’re not keyed the same. So you have two keys that look identical. One of our biggest problems on the aftermarket side is people have that, they put the wrong key in the lock, and they think, “Ah, it’s a little sticky,” so they force it and that’s where the key breakage comes in. When in actuality, they just had the wrong key. They had the back door key, using it on the front door. So if we can do that, that makes their life easier and it also cuts down on the damage and the breakage.

David: Our Key Alike system, we’ve tried to make it as user friendly as possible. We’ve got YouTube videos and other kind of documents that actually walk you through it. It’s a really easy process. Anybody can do it. You just need five minutes and you can take care of it. The YouTube videos we have posted on our YouTube channel which is CPGbrands.com but then we also have that rekeying video and all of those other types of  videos right on our website, which is that RVlocksandmore.com.

Chris: One of the biggest things we’re coming out with right now is a keyless lock. We’ve had that keyless lock for over a year now and it’s gone through several levels of variation and upgrading. One of the best things we’re coming out with, in the next 30 to 60 days, we will have a Bluetooth version of that lock that will work on your cell phone and the nice thing about that is, is if you are–if you forget that you locked your lock, now you can lock it from your cell phone just like you can your car or your house these days.

Chris: Creative Products Group just recently teamed up with the “Rollin’ On” NOBO project, the raffle project. We’re gonna supply the new Bluetooth-type lock for that. And we’re gonna key that unit alike so that all the keys are the same. So our big thing is just keeping people supplied with the things they can’t find everywhere. We do work very heavily through the dealership program and through the distribution channel on the aftermarket. We also offer an internet site for those things that you just can’t find anywheres else. www.rvlocksandmore.com. Short code would be www.rvlam.com. When you go on there, it’s all retail pricing. It’s the same price you’d probably pay at a dealership but the convenience. We’re dealing with the e-commerce world. We stepped into that e-commerce world several years ago and we think we’ve done a real good job of it. Right now, our lead time is 24 hours. If you place an order tonight, we’d normally ship it out tomorrow morning. And hopefully, we can get you taken care of.