Rainbow back in the US ?
01-17-2010, 08:14 AM
#1
I tend to get a bit irritable
Thread Starter
iTrader: (151)
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Central Jersey
Posts: 17,674
Rainbow back in the US ?
Indeed it is !
Well technically it never left, but lost it's distribution late 2008. What this meant was dealers were required to order directly from Germany and either pay freight (Quite pricey !) or make a minimum order to receive free freight. This left alot of dealers a little uncomfortable, especially due to change in the economy and several of them left the product. Consumers also felt this a bit as there may be no support for them.
I was first introduced to Rainbow products by the great guys at Arc back in 2002/2003. They were kind enough to even send me a sample set to play with a bit back then and I was hooked. My local clients soon followed.
Arc and Rainbow later parted ways and lingered for a bit when Alumapro picked them up. This did not last for so long until they later parted ways as well. Dealers were a bit disappointed and the line slowed down nationwide. I continued to stick with it for about another year.
Rainbow finally paired up with a larger 'stand alone' national distributor named Distinct USA. Distinct did a fairly good job at both moving and promoting the product and even splurged for a CES vehicle (owned and provided by Marquies/jayhawkblk). Partnering with Sinfoni for the show we had a decent success. Unfortunately this came to a halt when the owner of Distinct) in late 2008 decided he no longer had any interests in this job, dumped product and left the country.
I continued supporting the product, kept things in stock and solely fulfilled many orders of a quite large crowd nationwide that still wanted the drivers and amps. A few dealers continued to stay on board, but they were surely scarce and still filled with fear.
For the past nearly a year now my partner and myself had several discussion with the folks at Rainbow and the possibility of bringing the product back. They were a bit uneasy due to the past track record so we did everything in our power to convince them otherwise. It worked !
In mid December 2009 we were finally official and received our first order. The time of arrival was difficult to manage to have product in stock and ready to shop and ship for the CES show. We air freighted 4,100lbs over 6 pallets of products from Germany to Bensenville Illinois. Yes, this was VERY expensive. We then air freighted several things to Vegas to be shown as well. Again, quite expensive. So why did we do it ? To be honest ? Hell, we love this stuff !
Part of our plan was in joint effort with Emilios from Dynaudio North America in Illinois. He went the extra mile to make alot of this possible for us including, but not limited to receiving, unpacking, repacking for shipping to Vegas on his day off - Dec. 30th ! We chose this location to be more centrally located for all dealers to have their products in (usually) less time than shipping from New Jersey. They had the space and the man power to be able to ship our products efficiently. A huge hats off to him for making this work for us.
Alas we had products to show and our suite filled with dealers and reps from all parts of the country. We lent some space to John and Dave of TRU Technology and the joint effort, long days, tons of walking and talking proved to be a great success. 13 new dealers, 3 new rep firms firms and we welcomed with open arms former dealers that made Rainbow their 'had to have again' product. CES was finally a success !
I am aware this is an open forum, but some dealers are on here as well. In fact some of them are now also Rainbow dealers. Most of all I wanted to share this, just to express my enthusiasm for what we achieved. It was an incredible project and we made it through unscathed.
Well technically it never left, but lost it's distribution late 2008. What this meant was dealers were required to order directly from Germany and either pay freight (Quite pricey !) or make a minimum order to receive free freight. This left alot of dealers a little uncomfortable, especially due to change in the economy and several of them left the product. Consumers also felt this a bit as there may be no support for them.
I was first introduced to Rainbow products by the great guys at Arc back in 2002/2003. They were kind enough to even send me a sample set to play with a bit back then and I was hooked. My local clients soon followed.
Arc and Rainbow later parted ways and lingered for a bit when Alumapro picked them up. This did not last for so long until they later parted ways as well. Dealers were a bit disappointed and the line slowed down nationwide. I continued to stick with it for about another year.
Rainbow finally paired up with a larger 'stand alone' national distributor named Distinct USA. Distinct did a fairly good job at both moving and promoting the product and even splurged for a CES vehicle (owned and provided by Marquies/jayhawkblk). Partnering with Sinfoni for the show we had a decent success. Unfortunately this came to a halt when the owner of Distinct) in late 2008 decided he no longer had any interests in this job, dumped product and left the country.
I continued supporting the product, kept things in stock and solely fulfilled many orders of a quite large crowd nationwide that still wanted the drivers and amps. A few dealers continued to stay on board, but they were surely scarce and still filled with fear.
For the past nearly a year now my partner and myself had several discussion with the folks at Rainbow and the possibility of bringing the product back. They were a bit uneasy due to the past track record so we did everything in our power to convince them otherwise. It worked !
In mid December 2009 we were finally official and received our first order. The time of arrival was difficult to manage to have product in stock and ready to shop and ship for the CES show. We air freighted 4,100lbs over 6 pallets of products from Germany to Bensenville Illinois. Yes, this was VERY expensive. We then air freighted several things to Vegas to be shown as well. Again, quite expensive. So why did we do it ? To be honest ? Hell, we love this stuff !
Part of our plan was in joint effort with Emilios from Dynaudio North America in Illinois. He went the extra mile to make alot of this possible for us including, but not limited to receiving, unpacking, repacking for shipping to Vegas on his day off - Dec. 30th ! We chose this location to be more centrally located for all dealers to have their products in (usually) less time than shipping from New Jersey. They had the space and the man power to be able to ship our products efficiently. A huge hats off to him for making this work for us.
Alas we had products to show and our suite filled with dealers and reps from all parts of the country. We lent some space to John and Dave of TRU Technology and the joint effort, long days, tons of walking and talking proved to be a great success. 13 new dealers, 3 new rep firms firms and we welcomed with open arms former dealers that made Rainbow their 'had to have again' product. CES was finally a success !
I am aware this is an open forum, but some dealers are on here as well. In fact some of them are now also Rainbow dealers. Most of all I wanted to share this, just to express my enthusiasm for what we achieved. It was an incredible project and we made it through unscathed.
01-19-2010, 08:31 PM
#11
I tend to get a bit irritable
Thread Starter
iTrader: (151)
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Central Jersey
Posts: 17,674
01-19-2010, 08:53 PM
#14
Supporting Maxima.org Member
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 426
. Audio depot doesn't have the brightest installers in the world. At least i'll be able to get new speakers sooner after the amp thing hopefully goes through 
Last edited by '96 B-rad; 01-19-2010 at 08:56 PM.
01-20-2010, 07:54 AM
#18
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