Wednesday, September 9, 2009

End of Upholstery, End of an Era

So we have some bad news for you: The shoe-cleaning upholstery fabrics that have been a staple of Cordless and Revolution Crash Pads for the last 14 years will be going away. Don't worry, it won't happen for another six months or so, but it's going to happen.



Here's the problem: Almost all of the mills that make this material in the USA are moving, or have moved production to Asia. We used Automobile upholstery, the same stuff that covers the seats in your kick-ass Buick LeSabre.



But the US Auto industry is in a swan dive, so the domestic demand has fallen off. It's kind of an ugly way to learn about economics, huh?

So the only way we could have a consistent, inexpensive supply of this fabric is if we purchased a boat container quantity of fabric rolls. And that would cost us about $150,000. In other words, it ain't going to happen anytime soon.

But we have another idea to remedy this situation: The little Ammo Rugs. These small rugs are easily available for us now and in the future.


Plus, it makes more sense to have a separate shoe-cleaning utensil that's not built into the Pad: The area where you need to place a Crash Pad is not always at the base of the boulder problem, where you would need a rug.

So when we run out of Upholstery, we will be including the rugs with our Crash Pads. So it's not really bad news, just a little change.

No comments:

Post a Comment