Aqualisa Quartz: Simply a Better Shower
9/11/2012
Aaron Vessel Aqualisa is stuck in an unfortunate situation. It has created a great new product, the Quartz line, possibly the best shower available, but nobody is buying it. Harry Rawlinson is desperate to generate sales to help recoup the huge costs he has racked up in developing this product, but so far none of his tactics are working. Rawlinson knows he has an amazing technology and doesn’t want to sell it cheap, but the increased functionality of the shower makes up for the more expensive price tag. Everyone who uses or reviews Quartz raves about it, and it has won some awards, but none of this has translated into sales. Currently, Quartz is being relegated as a niche product by Aqualisa, and as a result may never reach the target number of sales or become mainstream. Rawlinson wants to avoid being only a specialty product, not only because he believes this new shower is a breakthrough in the market, but because he needs to recover his R&D costs as fast as possible. In order to make Quartz a success, changes in Aqualisa’s marketing must happen soon. Aqualisa no doubt has invented a revolutionary new shower, but has done a poor job conveying this to the right people. The company has created more value for the customer (and the price reflects it), but is at the mercy of plumbers, who are stubborn to accept new technology. Immediately, this is a problem. Aqualisa has won trade awards and has made big splashes in the industry, but customer awareness is low. Since Quartz is presumably going to be sold to plumbers for consumers, Aqualisa concentrated on marketing itself in the industry or to its plumbers, not the consumers. Plumbers are hesitant to touch the product though, since the last time the industry saw changes like this it backfired. Instead, Aqualisa needs to market directly to the consumer as Rawlinson mentioned considering. Triton has shown this to be effective for their products, and 27% of shower selections are made by the consumer without any input from plumbers. Rawlinson also notes an anecdote about a consumer requesting a Quartz shower and persuading the reluctant plumber to do it. The project was done in a fourth the time a normal installation requires, was incredibly easy, and the plumber now does Quartz shower installations on a regular basis. In order to gain more converts in this manner, Aqualisa needs to employ a pull strategy rather than a push strategy, make the consumer want it and they will make the plumber like it. While direct consumer marketing will help, there is still the other 73% of the market that buys showers with the plumber’s input. Aqualisa is faced with several other problems that seem to pivot on the price. As Rawlinson explains, developers are opposed to Aqualisa products in general because of the price, and Quartz is even more expensive to reflect its functions. This is a relatively small segment (15%), but finding a way to discount the product for developers, even for just a short time, would increase plumber experience, get more people using the product, and create more of a pull effect in the future. The Quartz Standard line only costs €175 to produce but has a retail price of €850 and a MRP of €450, leaving a margin of €275. Cutting the retail price to €600 and dropping the MRP to €350 would still create a €175 margin. While this is markedly lower, it would make the product far more attractive to developers. If Aqualisa could cut manufacturing costs, even if it means cutting some of the