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Something Interesting About Me:: Hi everyone !

I was looking how to make a "Fluo" (Neon Color) wax in order to develop a new product and I found your website of Lava Lamps Fans !

My name is Ben and I am leaving in France, I am 27 and I work with my father in a import and export gift company, this is my story.

My parents started their business in 1981, the year I was born. In the late 80's the company was doing well and they were well know for the funny products they were introducing on the french market.
Products like plasma balls, gumball dispensers, time machine... most of these products were coming from USA at that time.

Then they became exclusive distributor for Mathmos and Haggerty (Lava World) for french market and the product was selling very good, it was mainly sold in the mom and pops shops and trendy Paris boutiques.

End of the 90's the company have to face the competition of the first chinese lava lamps. All our competitors that were locked by our exclusivity found a chance to import the chinese ones much cheaper.
(In europe, most of the people doesn't know the difference between chinese and original lamps, for them a lava lamp is based on the process of the wax and not on the shape)

The company was loosing its position of leader and my father offer to Mathmos and Haggerty to produce their product in China if they wanted to stay competitive. They refused. And won't let my father buying the chinese lamps or they will cancel their exclusive agreement.
It last a yeat to lose 80% of our lava business as everybody were buying the chinese one.

Finally, my father decided to stop the originals in order to buy the Chinese lava in order to save his business.

We finally get back all our market shares and became the number one Lava Seller in Europe.
Seeing this the UK branch of Lava World, contacted us in 2004 to offer us the chinese production of their original product. They finally understood that if they don't want to go bankrupt they had no other choice.

So today we are selling more than 30 differents styles of lava including 5 Lavaworld models made in China. We sell about 300 000 pcs / year mainly in hypermarkets such as Carrefour, Auchan, Leclerc...

But what make the real difference is the graphics we are putting on our chinese models to make them different from the basic ones.

Even if I have so many lamps, I am sure you know more about it than me, so I am glad to learn more about this great product.

My First Lava Lamp was:: I got hundred of thousands in the Warehouse.

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At 5:53pm on July 3, 2008, Modulo '70 said…: Hi Ben and welcome to Oozing Goo too!

At 10:14am on July 3, 2008, Ford Prefect - NPNG said…: Hi Ben
welcome to Oozing Goo!
Shame you couldn't keep Mathmos, personally I wouldn't touch anything other than an english lamp, because i'm a lava snob lol.
But I do think the designs on some of your pics are very eye catching!
I don't know alot about lamps (apart from what I like!) but there are some very knowledgable peeps round here that i'm sure you'll have some good convos with.
A warehouse full of lava seems like a dream!
Lucy