Ask me about Lava Lite. Top 5 unanswered questions go to Lava Lite for answers

[Autumn]

As do most of my good ideas, this one came to me after waking up in the morning. As most of you know I have been talking with Dale, the CEO of Lava Lite in an attempt to bring the collecting community and Lava Lite on to the same page. I am going to be answering questions about Lava Lite today. Anything I don't know the answer to I will put on a list and the top 5 questions will be presented to Lava Lite.

Ready? Go!

~edit~

Here are the top 5 questions and answers.

The top 5 unanswered questions.

#1. Formula, formula, formula. Will the exact formula from the 90's be used? What exactly is going on, and what happened to make things so bad?

#2. Will new lamp designs be more bold? The past 10 years worth of lamp designs have been bland, can we spice it up a bit?

#3. New base finishes in 32/52oz lamps? Copper? Chrome? (Personal note: I'd love chrome)

#4. New grande colors? We want more color options

#5. This will be my question. You mentioned that small batches will be possible when production starts in the USA factory. Will it be possible to request custom lamps, as well as send in globes for refills on lamps such as the consorts and giants?

"

#1. 

This is the big question. This was our big question and our problem to solve.

The formula was not the problem. Not following the procedure is where the problems have existed. The formula is the exact formula used in the 1990's. The process of making the formula has to be followed precisely every time.The proper heating of the wax/formula to an exact temperature is a long slow process. This is followed by a slow cool down. Every time, every batch.The problems occur when heating too quickly/and or cooled too quickly. Our two key people spent weeks at a time supervising the process. We also have an independent engineer/quality person in China. This was incredibly frustrating on our end initially. It was very simple to us.  "Just follow the formula." The real issue proved to be the process was being rushed. Less Time= Less Labor. Factories can do many things to their cut costs. Not many products exist where the end user can detect any change in quality. Our product quality is totally visible. Our team communicates with our factories every night by Skype. When they aren't present they are watching the manufacturing on Skype. We watch them like a hawk. 

#2. 

You will see many new designs and products that I would consider bold. The Clearview is the first of many being released this year. The process of creating products is painstaking and costly. From concept to release takes roughly a year. Next years design work has already begun. Having a constant flow of new interesting and exciting products are critical to our success. 

Questions #3-#5 are all good questions that primarily relate to marketing and product development, now and in the future. 

New attractive products are the lifeblood of any good consumer product company. New sizes, finishes and colors are currently in the works or in development. My personal favorite size is the Grande. The Grande could be the ideal product to initially manufacture in the USA for the following reasons: Ability to be nimble to changes, smaller batch sizes, ease of adding new colors, inventory management, upscaled finishes with smaller limited quantities and reduced lead times for products to enter the market. Initially US made product will be more costly. The larger sizes are not as price sensitive as our current line. Custom lamps would be very costly and probably not feasible.

Refilling globes would be possible and would need to be further explored. I can't provide specific timing to many of LL's current projects. These are works in progress. I assure you that our very experienced team are pros at handling any challenge. There is never a dull moment at LL. 

"

[Pierre Brazeau]

Hi again everyone, I'm having difficulty keeping my stupid comments to my self, so being a member,I hope you all forgive me.I worked till December of last year for 11 years at Walmart, and the operating word is volume and more volume, which takes up lots of realstate to hold and maintain different products. There's no money being made by keeping huge inventories in the stockrooms. The salesfloor is where the money is made. No point in carrying "X" amounts of one color of one type of product when the store's square footage can occupy "X" amount of this type and color product,which sells like gang busters. And in answer to questions posed about the lack of continuity in sales of different products, at various stores,well big fish eat little fish. I've heard it said many times,"if this huge store chain comes and sets up shop in our town, well the smaller businesses will have to close up for good, can't compete with these guys there just too big". S.C.M. which stands for supply chain management. there's one of these warehouses in the same town where I live and believe me these puppies are huge. There described not as 250,000 square feet, many retail store are that large,no there one square mile,and they supply many district stores. So your chance of getting that product with this size,this color,this shape,and that does this or that is well like a fart in the wind,gone leaving nothing but angly memories, excuse the expression. These little store that go under are fodder for the larger chain businesses, and they buy them up like for almost peanuts,and while you'll see these  products at one time the inventory of these items are  gone before you  say,what,who,where, can someone tell me what just happened and the game is over. And they'll politetly say "Sorry we sold them like hot cakes,we don't know if we'll be getting more of them maybe if you come back, ummm say maybe next week we might have some then." Great reason to have you come back and secure another purchase then, in short what there trying to tell is "Hey bub, business is business so if you don't like that go shop somewhere else." without even batting an eye. I'm afraid if we desire to increase our variety of the    things we like, we are the one to bring this to fruition.

[Jonas Clark-Elliott]

To the thread in general: Thanks for being civil. If you need to vent, don't do it in this thread.

The 20oz. and 8oz. lamps were, I'm sure (as mentioned above) a cost issue... but so was just about everything. Lava needed larger volume sales to stay afloat, I'm sure, to keep ahead of the countless knockoff brands. This is certainly why manufacturing moved to China. With the loss of Spencer Gifts** they had to lean more heavily on volume sellers such as Wal-Mart and Target, who then said, "If you'll meet these price points, we'll sell more of your product." Lava Lite then made changes - namely, smaller sizes - to meet price points.

The manufacturers in China did what they do best: maximize profit. The analogy of baking a pie for ten minutes at 1000 degrees instead of for an hour at 300 is a good example, as long as the pie is still fairly edible. Lava tried to find the best way to increase profit. The manufacturer in China tried to find the fastest and cheapest way to increase profit. And that's what happened. When the new owners got the company, I doubt they knew the full extent of what Haggerty or the Chinese manufacturers had done - at first - having never seen a 1990s-quality product come through. It lit up, it blobbed a bit, it's a lava lamp, simple stuff. That's also why the product still sold so well: if it kinda worked and was kinda inexpensive, the general public bought it. But it obviously didn't take long to realize there were big problems with the quality, and I've already seen improvements. The lamps carried by Spencer Gifts now look worlds better than those three years ago; true, they're not 1990s quality, but they ARE much better than they were! This is going to take some time, people, so sit back and relax. They're workin' on it. And if what you really want is Mathmos, relax; Mathmos is coming to the US, slowly but surely. You'll get your fix soon. I won't hate on you for preferring Mathmos - and in return, I ask that you don't hate on me for wanting to see the Lava Lite become great again.

**Spencer Gifts is selling Lava again. Why did they stop? Here's the basics as I know them: While still in the USA years, Spencers and Lava World had an agreement: Lava was to sell to no other volume retailers (they did one short stint selling the first Midnight Aristocrats through Target) and Spencers was to sell no other brand of liquid motion lamp. Worked fine for years and the Custom Lava Program boomed. And then Spencers began adding their own imports (like the Glo-Oozy and Aurora lamps) and Lava World began selling to Wal-Mart and Target. Each found out the other was breaking the agreement about the same time, and they both dropped it and stomped away from each other. The above is how I understand the falling-out occurred.

Autumn, thank you for being a go-between, and for being a good one. Thanks for helping to keep the thread civil and on-track.

Dale, if you're reading these comments, the following is for you:

I'm not the official welcome wagon, but I've been on Oozing Goo since the late 1990s. THANK YOU for coming here, for opening up a rapport despite the torches-and-pitchforks reception a handful of members gave Lava Lite a while back. Add me to the list of people who're going to trust that you're getting everything back on track. It'll take time and work, and I don't expect instant results. Take your time, do it right, and we'll all thank you.

If I had one question, I'd ask if you would consider the possibility of doing some limited editions for collectors in the future, perhaps re-releases of old 1960s and 1970s models. Until then, I for one am digging the clear-view lamp.

[Dr. WHAT?!]

Am I the only one who doesn't have a clue what Pierre is talking about? or maybe I just don't understand how this relates to the thread....

[Erin]

Nope, there's two of us. :)

Dr. WHAT?! said:

Am I the only one who doesn't have a clue what Pierre is talking about? or maybe I just don't understand how this relates to the thread....

[Dr. WHAT?!]

lol okay good!

[Tim Gill]

I understand what Pierre is saying - as we know shops such as Wlamart, Target etc are massive and through this giant corporate entity they gobble up and dwarf other business. Its too easy for other shops to get brought out or just go bust because of them, this is not new knodladge really.

The main point I think your trying to get across is basically to say that these kind of shops have a limited amount of 1 type of item (i.e. a select fue type/s of lamps) that will sell well raver then a entire range. This way there is no need to invest in having more lines added and thus more warehouse space as this costs more for something that wont really increase the overall sales of the item.

Also places such as this will often drop a range very quickly if its not selling well so new items can be added and make them more money  - this is really all it comes down to CORPRATE GREED.

Dale and Lava Lite this is for you - I fully understand that you main businesses comes from the large orders placed from target, walmart etc. It would be foolish to stop this (although in a ideal world this would be good to do). As you are now getting things back on track (product wise) the marketing and sales approach has to follow this. - Sell your entire range and unique items in flagship retailers such as Spencers. This will show case your items which in turn should get people buying more at a time as there is more to chose from, create more of a following and in turn more of a backing from Spencers as they will benefit from it as well.

Selling only to big supermarkets will mean your being forced to obay them and let them dictate costs and this would have a knock on effect of quality, for what. Yes big orders but only a select fue lamps are sold in these shops and this will mean having to cut product quality to meet this cut in cost and also would mean devalueing Lava Lite.

[Jonas Clark-Elliott]

Spencers had a HUGE marketing deal with Lava in the 90s...and that could happen again, I would like to hope.

I add to the voices asking that the "starlight" pinholes be added to the 52oz. lamps again... And maybe, if you want to draw the collectors, start simple: Bring back pinholes, brushed brass bases and the Century, the original US Lava Lite. I know that if those do happen, it won't be right away, but they're steps that will draw collectors.

[Steven]

I wanted to point out something. Back when I selling lamps the 52oz was a huge seller and we made a ton off of them. I noticed that spencers had a ton of different colors and when I asked my sales rep if I can get these she told me that I would have to go to Spencers to get those. I asked her why they did not offer these colors to the other retail websites and she told me that spencers will order any color combination they wanted along with the base and cap and the order goes directly to china. But keep in mind that spencers also offers the current 20oz lamps too. Walmart, khols, target, and mernards have also picked out their own custom colors in the past for their 20oz lamps.
We know that the spencers had just a short time ago released a limited ammount of colors such as the pink in yellow and the white in purple in the 52oz globe and then theres also the 52oz black in orange......and now the neons that were just recalled. Again.....the smaller lava retailers such as direct glow, d4 electronics, and me a few years ago do not have the facilities to store a few thousand lamps because we want to sell our own custom colors. Instead we have to depend on LL to produce the lamps and without a good selection of lamps things can get old and stale. But I am a collector now and knowing some of these issues I can't help but wonder if coming out with different colors for different size lamps is being made out to be more complicated than it really is. It seems that LL is more pro 20oz andspencers is more pro 52oz?

[Tim Gill]

LL is pro 20oz as this is the one that places like Walmart, Target etc want to sell as this is in the 20 bucks range that people will be willing to spend on them.  Thus justifying these big places selling them and because they will sell to people who don't really know much about lava and to them a lamp is a lamp - this is why LL have got greedy before and the quality has dropped.

Basickly LL has to make 20oz's as these bank-role the larger globes and the prototypes which cost more to manufacture and also bring in less profit.

As I see it Spencer is pro larger globes and unusual items. People who shop in Spencer want these items and are more lava savy, so will be prepared to spend more on a bigger item which is far more superior then a 20oz.

It takes time to release a new colour combo as it has to be developed, tested etc then massive batches made so it can be made cost effective.

As for size I think that this is quite a simple change to make just put different globes on the line and change the equipment timings etc. If this is how it operates in china as apparently they brought the equipment from Hagerty when it was in the US.

Check out this video to see what I mean http://oozinggoo.ning.com/video/video-showing-production-of

[Steven]

It just feels like there is a major lack of drive as far as production goes. Its been a very very long time since there was a huge release of large lamps. Recently when they announced their releaseof of products it contained 3 new 20oz. Both batman lamps and a white in green. So its just frustrating. I'm willing to wait for good quality products.
I thought it was noble of them to recall the neon lamps. Haggarty did the opposite. There was a time when they had a huge batch of defected 52oz red in clear and decided to selling th em which costs many sellers tons of money. It made us look bad and angerd many customers. This is a good way to rebuild a reputation with everyone and bring many people back.

[Tim Gill]

I don't know if you have read what Autumn has been saying from her discutions with LL CEO Dale. Basically LL is changing this around and there is a drive for better products, good quality and more variety etc and also to bring the production back to the US which should sort out the production issues.

It will take time for things to change but from what has been happening recently things really are changing - there have been new releases (i.e. the clear view, 'neon' range, batman lamps), quality has improved some what since previous times. Allthough things are perfect it is being worked on so just give them time.

Steven said:

It just feels like there is a major lack of drive as far as production goes. Its been a very very long time since there was a huge release of large lamps. Recently when they announced their releaseof of products it contained 3 new 20oz. Both batman lamps and a white in green. So its just frustrating. I'm willing to wait for good quality products.
I thought it was noble of them to recall the neon lamps. Haggarty did the opposite. There was a time when they had a huge batch of defected 52oz red in clear and decided to selling th em which costs many sellers tons of money. It made us look bad and angerd many customers. This is a good way to rebuild a reputation with everyone and bring many people back.

[Autumn]

3 32oz clearviews. 3 12oz clearviews. 2 batman lamps. Ice lamp. Tornado glitter. 3 52oz neons. 3 20oz neons. Two zebra print lamps. 32oz aquarium. 52oz plasma lamp.

Steven said:

It just feels like there is a major lack of drive as far as production goes. Its been a very very long time since there was a huge release of large lamps. Recently when they announced their releaseof of products it contained 3 new 20oz. Both batman lamps and a white in green. So its just frustrating. I'm willing to wait for good quality products.
I thought it was noble of them to recall the neon lamps. Haggarty did the opposite. There was a time when they had a huge batch of defected 52oz red in clear and decided to selling th em which costs many sellers tons of money. It made us look bad and angerd many customers. This is a good way to rebuild a reputation with everyone and bring many people back.