Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

This is old my man.  June 2007.  Where's it been?  NYC just added a bunch of public restrooms, plan to add more, and other cities are following suit.  The airblade didn't get the nod.

Couple of notes on the old article:  It appears the users are women.  A point raised by a gent on one of the Vacuum Forums is that the small airblade drying well would pose a problem for men with hairy man arms.  Recall: I believe it was Gandalf who did.

Second:  The unsanitary water/mess left on and around the airblade. Takes a custodian to monitor and clean.  Labor costs.

Rubbermaid recently entered the bathroom washroom industry by acquiring a company well intrenched in non-touch and sanitary bathroom devices.  Seems it has the hold on the market despite dyson's entrance in September 2006 with the airblade.  More common are the touchless paper towels that push out a towel from the the motion of hands.  Sure it uses trees for the paper.  But in a the current housing market with no wood beingh harvested for new home building and/or aluminum studs for frames, what else should be done with these trees?  No, not newsapers.  Most get news on-line and TV.  Paper towels!

Carmine D.

Mr. A:

Are the airblades standalone dryers in the A/P restrooms and/or do they coexist with the conventional hand dryers and paper towels?

Carmine D.

James Dyson was interviewed in Forbes recently and the topic of conversation was his Airblade.  Here.

Since it's launch in the summer of 2007, total Airblades sold are 100,000

Total sales in dollars:  $140,000

Cost to dyson to produce each unit: $840

Retail price: $1400 {about 3X as much as traditional hand dryers].

It has not taken off as quickly and well as dyson hoped. 

Carmine D.

Now, the question of whether the AirBlade sales are included in the $1B sales is more relevant.  $140,000 is immaterial on $1B.  $140,000,000 is very material. 

Assume for talking purposes the $140,000,000 is not in the $1B and the vacuum data is segregated [probably a good assumption].  Divide the $64 Million [dyson net profit] by wholesale units of dyson vacuums sold.  If you reasonably estimate 2 Million [USA] and 4 Million [worldwide] sold [based on NPD data], the dyson profit per unit is $16 to $32.  Say 3 MIllion worldwide [more reasonably], the net dyson profit is about $22 per vacuum sold at wholesale.  On the low side for profits for $1B in annual sales? ESPECIALLY AFTER 15 YEARS of operation.  

Sales increased 10 percent in 2007.  Dyson prices went from $400 in 2002 to $500 plus in 2007.  That's 25 percent increase.  Probably at least 10 percent passed on to retailers.   Did dyson unit sales increase?  No, probably not.  In fact, they may have gone down if sales dollars increased 10 percent on price increases of 25 percent.   And that's with increased markets and countries of sale!

Dyson would fare better as a retailer with $250 gross profit per vacuum sold before overhead and operating expenses.  The only problem now is that consumers aren't buying anymore.

Carmine D.