Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

James Dyson has voiced his feelings in regard to what it will take to save Britain's manufacturing industry in a report commissioned by the country's Conservative Party.  An interesting read and plenty of UK reader comments follow.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/7400742/Sir-James-Dyson-plan-to-fill-UKs-engineering-vacuum.html

M00seUK and vacmanuk, I'll be glad to learn what you think.

Venson

M00seUK wrote:

Spelled vacuum wrong in the first sentence.  And is using 2008 financial and wealth results.  Dah!  It's 2010.  Sir James is living in the past glory days.  Time to get a new gig/rap. 

Carmine D.

CarmineD wrote:
1) Vacuum spelling: It's a local newspaper - they probably can't afford to employ a sub-editor at the moment.
2) 2008 results: To be fair, Dyson only currently have public accounts made up to 31 Dec 2008.

Venson wrote:
Hi Venson, yes indeed. There's been a fair number of British companies with good consumer products, but most haven't a clue when it came to good PR. Many had this 'old school' business attitude and were deep down resentful of enquires from journalists. It would be fair to say that Dyson quickly embraced the American style of PR and haven't looked back since.

With the 'royal' airblade sales, I'm sure Dyson would have considered supplying them at cost, if asked. But, I'd imagine the Royal family aren't pushed when it comes to building maintenance costs and so equally, Dyson could have called the shots. One of the benefits of having a unique product offering.

CarmineD wrote:
Air conditioning to my mind is a heavy air/fridge coolant cooled unit. Desk fans and large stand fans are what Dyson's new fan could in theory replace.

M00seUK wrote:

M00seUK:

You can only spend what you have now, not what you had Dec 31, 2008.  WRT spelling vacuum, who needs an editor to get it right?

Carmine D.

vacmanuk wrote:

Not so in the USA.  A/C units both window and room are lightweight, portable and available at prices comparable to dyson's 10-12 inch desk top fan at $300.

Carmine D.

EU countries came to the financial rescue of Greece this weekend.  Word in the news here is the UK is next to go belly up, even before Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, with debt levels comparable to Greece and worse.

Carmine D.

Funny that, there's an announcement nationally that the house prices in the UK have suddenly gone up and cheap mortgages on house buying has been reinstated.

CarmineD wrote:

Carmine,

My church had it's annual fundraiser family festival this weekend. One of the silent auction items was a Dyson "bladeless" fan.  There was a lot of interest in the fan and how it works.  I don't know whether the interest will translate into sales.  I don't know what the final bid was, but the bid was around $270 (list $320) the last time I checked (with at least 15 minutes to go).   My church is in a fairly affluent area, and many would not think twice about spending over $300 on a desk fan. 

If the final cap and trade bill coming out of congress is too draconian, desk fans may be the norm rather than air conditioning in the future.  Or more likely, you'll air condition to 80 degrees and use fans to make it feel less miserable. 

CarmineD wrote:
The information I have is that a window air conditioner uses 1,200 watts while running. A Dyson air multiplier uses 1/30th of this, at 40 watts.

As Severus mentions, if a personal Dyson air multipliers can be used, in certain instances, as a more pleasant category of 'fan' in place of an a/c unit, there are financial advantages to the user and environmental advantages as a whole.

Make no mistake, there's a very substantial mark-up on the Dyson fan. They have the marketing mix; something unique, which has reduced running costs, a status symbol of sorts, from which they can make a very nice return on their investment. Sound familar? It's not far off how they profited from their vacuum cleaners.

Like all consumer goods, the RRP will fall in time. Dyson just need to keep an eye on the sales numbers and stimulate then with small discounts. Unlike, say LCD TVs, they don't (at least for the moment) have any direct competition.