Electronics: take five
While the travel-retail electronics category has never been more competitive, a number of smaller brands are continuing to break through and make an impact on travelling consumers. David Davies finds out more about five of the best
Golla and BodyGlove
While perhaps best known for representing some of the world’s leading electronics brands in travel-retail, distributor Dufri International also has responsibilities for a number of smaller brands. Two of these, Golla and BodyGlove, both fall into the increasingly vibrant electronic accessories sub-category.
“As is widely known, the margins for general electronics products are tight,” observes Laila Lemmer, marketing manager, Dufri International. “The accessories brands bring that extra value to make the electronics category much more interesting. The major multinational manufacturers have also been concentrating more and more on developing accessories lines as well recently. In particular, the iPod-related items, such as protection cases, are becoming more popular.”
Twelve years since Golla’s first collection of brands was introduced, the brand continues to operate a dual focus on lifestyle and fashion. Now available in more than 100 countries, the complete Golla collection includes laptop, music, digi and mobile bags.
Body Glove has a considerably longer history, stretching all the way back to 1953 and the development of the first ever neoprene wetsuit. In 2008, the brand’s extensive portfolio of technology accessories encompasses three distinct areas: camera protection, portable solutions (including CD/DVD wallets and satellite navigation storage) and laptop luggage.
Dufri International has showcased both Golla and BodyGlove during previous TFWA World Exhibitions, and sought to introduce the brands to its customers by sending out free samples. Now the company is taking further steps to move the brands on to the next level.
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“To grow the presence of these brands, we have adjusted our website with a special page for BodyGlove and one for Golla,” reveals Lemmer. “We are also planning to take out a few advertisements to make the retailers more aware of the brands. Additionally, for our customers we have staff incentives to promote the sales of BodyGlove and Golla.”
Needless to say, Dufri International is also continuing to support its more well-known brands, with Olympus’ limited edition Mju-1020 White Pimp-Your-Cam kit and the new Sony DSCW-170 digital camera – the latter featuring a technology entitled Intelligent Scene Recognition that is said to “take the guesswork out of selecting the right camera settings in a range of common shooting situations” – among the current hot items.
Minox
Offering an exciting alternative to the products of much larger players has long been the guiding principle of Minox, which has focused almost exclusively on the global duty-free/travel-retail channel for over 10 years. This concentrated approach has delivered numerous benefits for the brand, not least in terms of the channel’s historic association with high quality.
“Minox is a worldwide known brand and stands for small, high quality products with a top-class design,” says Minox’s Sabine Krombach. “Minox products are not available in any hypermarkets but only through very selective distribution channels. The extraordinary size and design attracts a broad customer range and we will continue to launch new exclusive and extraordinary products in the future to maintain our presence in the duty-free/travel-retail business. Our ambition for Minox is to establish the market position by offering alternative products – in other words, we are non-competitive.”
Although Krombach declines to offer too many specific details about what the company might be showing in Cannes this year, she does admit that a major new ‘imaging gadget’ is in the pipeline. “The main turnover has been achieved with our imaging products,” she explains. “Thus we are currently developing a new imaging gadget which stands for Minox – small, extraordinary and of high quality.”
Lifetrons Switzerland
Established in 2002, Lifetrons Switzerland has managed to establish an impressive presence in travel-retail in the course of a mere three years for its range of products combining cutting-edge technology with contemporary design. In 2008, the company’s core items are the Ultra-Slim Metallic Charger, Ultra-Slim Internet Phone and Ultra-Slim Metallic Mouse, while its duty-free and inflight sales partners include such major players as Nuance-Watson, King Power, Cathay Pacific, DragonAir, NorthWest and Air France.
“At airport duty-free shops, the majority of travellers are still looking for a well-known brand and products like trendy cameras, MP3 players or related peripherals. These are almost the sure-win products for high volume sales business to airports,” says Simon Wong, business development director at Lifetrons Switzerland. “As a niche and luxury travelling accessories manufacturer, this is really a challenge as it takes time to edcuate consumers about Swiss quality and reliability. To overcome these challenges, Lifetrons Switzerland focuses on good product and reliability as the top priorities.”
By way of example, Wong cites the Lifetrons Multiple Power Charger, billed as “the world’s smallest high-capacity charger” and designed to withstand both very high and low temperatures. Accordingly, a testing procedure involved the device being stored at +66 degrees (centigrade) in a 90% relative humidity environment for 168 hours, after which it was subjected to 24 hours at a temperature of -40 degrees (centigrade) in a 0% relative humidity environment.
“This ensures the Multiple Power Charger can function well even if executives or travellers take it to a very cold place like Russia or an extremely hot one like South Africa,” notes Wong.
Zero Inc
Featured at length in the January issue of Frontier, Southampton-based supplier Zero Inc is continuing to make a major impact across travel-retail thanks to a diverse range of user-friendly products, the most successful of which include the ZWT-328 walkie talkie set, TDB-002 29 language translator and ZP-234 electronic game.
“Our strategy is to develop products that are in touch with the ever-changing technological market but not necessarily become a slave to it, so that we can offer the passenger products they want, in the style they want and at a price they want,” explains Geoff Hutley, managing director of Zero Inc parent company Zero Group.
And while the travel-retail electronics category may feature a number of larger, possibly more well-known brands, Hutley – who says that TR will remain the “main focus” of Zero Inc’s business going forward – does highlight an important point of difference that may work in Zero’s favour.
“What we are able to offer the travel-retail customer that the larger brands often cannot is a more dedicated service that is more understanding and accepting of their requirements,” he says. “In effect, we are prepared to work with the customer rather than try to impose our own brand arrogance.”
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