Word: producting
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...transportation. They're Heelys, and the brand is on the move. But how does a company with $40 million in annual revenues and a slender marketing budget expand to more than 60 countries in less than five years without getting lost? HSL Inc., launched in late 2000 with one product, posted U.S. sales of more than $36 million last year--an increase of 250%--and about $2.4 million in Europe (up a respectable 200%) while the company was opening up Latin America and combatting piracy in Asia. "Our marketing strategy is universal," says Mike Staffaroni, CEO of HSL, which...
Take Japan. Public demos proved a perfect vehicle for product exposure in that densely populated country. HSL rolled out Heelys in brighter colors and produced Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh models to take advantage of local licensing agreements. But success spawned cheap copies, slicing HSL's monopoly market share in half. In a neat bit of counterprogramming, however, its man in Japan recommended fighting the pirates on their turf: self-serve discounters. So HSL created Cruz, a lower-priced sub-brand, exclusively for Japan...
With only 2 million heelers, compared with some 10 million skateboarders, HSL can grow if it can turn the shoes into a lifestyle product, says Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at NPD Group. He suggests that HSL elevate the brand by working to make heeling an Olympic event. Having staged the Pan-Asian Heelys Challenge for three years, and with the first European competition kicking off next summer, "we think about that all the time," says Staffaroni. It worked for snowboarding...
...took hold in China, a state-owned factory set up to supply lab stools to a nearby university made the country's first five-wheeled swivel chair. Soon local bamboo farmers pooled their savings to start factories themselves. By the late 1990s, Anji's economy centered on a single product. Last year its 460 factories churned out $740 million worth of chairs (more than double the output in 2003) and exported nearly half that. "One in every three office chairs in China will now be made here," says Lin Huanrong, vice secretary of Anji's newly established Chair Industry Association...
Even in the booming Pearl River delta--China's furniture stronghold--research, innovation and technical know-how have failed to keep pace with production. But that too may change. According to Eric Kan, whose Hong Kong-- based Oasis Global Sourcing designs and procures luxury housewares on the mainland, "Chinese factories have improved dramatically in the past three to five years in terms of their attention to detail." Kan outfitted the Sands Casino in Macau, and is at work furnishing a Manhattan clubhouse for the Ciprianis, the Venetian family that owns namesake hotels and restaurants around the world. Factories in China...