Over the past two and a half years, we have been involved with trying to set up initial North American Marketplace distribution for a very unique European product that virtually sells itself in its home market. THE EAGLE had written at the time we started this endeavor about the generic need for a distribution incubator in this market. Now, two plus years later, the client is still without national distribution despite signing dealers and initiating sales. He is now starting over. How this has happened is an important story to tell.

The product costs only $1,000 to $2,000. It is a magnetic strip production planning board. Every printing production facility could logistically and financially benefit from such a planning tool. Every shop that we’ve been in has a giant whiteboard that it uses for production planning. These are hard to use, as they do not erase well, and it is impossible to just move a task that is late for whatever reason. It also isn’t easy to remove the completed day and replace it with the new day at the end of the production period. With this product, it is really easy to always show the next time period as the week progresses. So, every production facility that we discuss the concept with seems to want one, but they need a local supplier. And that is where we have failed miserably.

As is typical for overseas companies, the client wanted to have a single U.S. distribution entity. But, as we all know, no such animal exists for products that nobody knows they want to buy, i.e. there is no demand already built up. Worse yet, because this product has no domestic competitor – nothing like it is available here – nobody will ever know to ask for it.