Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Early news reports in the USA are saying the London financial markets nosed dived today in the worse downturn ever.  This comes on the heels of a 4 percent drop in the Dow Jones Industrials last week alone.  Since today is a Federal Holiday in the US in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King the financial markets are closed.  Not sure what impact the London market fall will have on the US markets--have to wait to see.

What and how long will it take jaydee to realize that he needs to enter the low to middle price range vacuum market to stay competitive in the USA in the big box stores' venue?

Any news yet on the 2007 dyson sales? 

Carmine D.

Wasn't the 10-amp Fury $199 or so in 1995-96, and the Thunder (formerly the 11-amp Fantom) $249? 

CarmineD wrote:
In contrast to Dyson, the backstory on the Fantom sounds very much shareholder-led. As I understand it, they licensed the Dyson patents, built it as cheaply as they could, designed it to rely on expensive HEPA filters that needed continual replacements and sold it at a high price, by the use of infomercials. If they'd taken the long view, depending on how long the origional licence period was, they could have well been the North American market leader over the last 5 years, in place of Dyson.

M00seUK wrote:
Hi Moose,

At that time they were around from 1992-2001, Fantoms were hardly the most expensive cleaner, although not the cheapest either by any means.  As for the longevity, personally I don't think they were as poorly made as most big-box vacuums around at the time, but it's hard to tell.  You see quite a few Fantoms around on eBay that are still running (or so the seller claims), but one vac shop I inquired about the Fantom at that time complained that they were complex machines with too many small parts (and therefore too many screws).  At any rate, I don't know how many Fantoms will continue to be in regular use, as sources for major parts have since dried up (though you can still find belts and such) and even the newer machines are close to 10 years old.  I do hear of many Fantom owners replacing their worn-out Fantoms with new Dysons.

Greed was what got the best of Fantom and eventually led to their demise.  The main problem was the corner-cutting on the filters.  While there was no choice on the first machines as far as filter type goes, by the mid-90's Dyson's lifetime HEPA filter was already out and being used on the UK machines.  Fantom, continually searching for more sources of revenue, opted to have a filter that had to be replaced periodically; the replacement interval escapes me but I remember it was not long.   Finally, in the early-2000s near the end, Fantom decided NOT to pay James Dyson royalties for use of his design, instead abandoning the dual-cyclone design in favor of their own system of bin filters.  As we all know the results of this were disastrous, and the Wildcat upright earned a "Not Acceptable" rating from CR due to visible dust emissions (I believe it was either in late 2001 or early 2002, I did receive that report when it was issued so I will have to check).  By the time of that report, the nail was already in the coffin for Fantom; CR even stated that Fantom had already filed for Chapter 11 so customers may have difficulty returning them.  Afterwards, Euro-Pro bought the rights to the Fantom name to put it on their own horrible machines, which they continue to do to this day. 

That's the story as I know it.  I may be off on a few parts so if anyone knows the right details feel free to correct me.

-MH

DysonInventsBig wrote:
Iona sales update:

I posted my Iona sales numbers (above post) from memory, and they were way off.  James is much to humble of a man to tout “the numbers” of his/his teams innovations success (sales of vacuums) while at Iona and so I had to do some digging - $530,479,251.00 in 3 years, or $656,000.000.00, in today’s dollars (conservatively).        DIB

 

March of 1996 Iona launched (Dyson’s) Fantom Dual Cyclone’s in America.  Below are Iona’s filings for U.S. sales only…

1999: $219,214,524.00 ($268m in today’s dollars)

1998: $165,407,235.00 ($205m in today’s dollars)

1997: $145,857,492.00 ($183m in today’s dollars)

DysonInventsBig wrote:

Motorhead wrote:

That sounds about right.  There was a 12 amp Fury too and it sold for (I think) around $220.00.        DIB

In 1978, about 10 Million new vacuums were sold every year in the USA.  By 2000, about 19 Million.  Now it's about 20 Million.  Back to the original question: Do the Fantom math [$ sales divided by average unit price].   What are the results?  Still impressed by the sales units every year?

Carmine D.

Hi Carmine, do you think that dysons following the same road as fantom? The reason being still no factory service centers,a few scattered here and there,months and months just to get parts delivered,the machine is so complicated that the average service manager just tells the customer send it back to the place it came from,we just dont want to deal with it.

Most of the indy's are now having a field day on dyson, such as you did not buy that piece of junk here, what makes you think im going to go out of my way to fix it your you,

The only reason these guys are still around is because of the marketing hype,and you and i and every indy in the country knows it.

WHAT happened to the revolutionary dc21 canister that was suppose to take over the high end canister market? I 'll tell you its a failure,and it uses the same cyclone set up as their uprights, So my question is why has their upright stayed alive [for now] and the canister that is the same set up a failure,[COULD IT BE THE WAY ITS ADVERTISED]i THINK SO.

THE GIG IS UP..............

MOLE

mole wrote:

Mole,

Most consumers will try to tell the world if they do not like a product that they purchase.  Most will say nothing if they like it.  I have not found a vacuum with more satisfied customers than Dyson.  I believe that goes way beyond marketing hype.  What is more hyped than the Oreck?

It seems that the only negative responses come from those who can't profit from Dyson sales.

For the past several years another has told us that Dyson would be out of business within a few months each time he posted.  He also hyped another brand that would be the demise of Dyson.  We all know which one failed. 

HARDSELL wrote:
I agree one would think that unsatisfied customers would squawk the most but it's still a mixed bag of pros vs cons, more so than any other brand I can account for. Dyson has a lot of dissatisfied customers. At the shop we hear complaints about them all the time. I offer them for sale but I would rather sell the customer another brand. NOT FOR A BETTER PROFIT as you imply but to retain a SATISFIED CUSTOMER. The risk out weighs the reward to an Indie. People will buy one crappy product after another from BB& Beyond or QVC and STILL remain a customer but If I sell them a lousy product they will not come back.

I don't have any crystal ball to predict their demise or not but the preponderance of Refurbs and "Used only a few times" machines on Ebay is not a good thing in my opinion. Still great Graphic Design and Fantastic Marketing can sell a lot of product.