Factors in Choosing the Next Product

I often hear from customers or dealers if we can bring an einszett product that's available in Europe but not here in North America. So I thought I would provide some insight on how we decide what we import and what we don't. einszett Germany has a vast array of products in Shop Line (consumer), Pro-Line (professional) and Carwash line. We only import a small fraction of the range thus far. So why don't we import more? Two reasons: environmental regulations and cost. Environmental regulations The United States and Canada have environmental regulations in place by their respective environmental regulations agencies. The United States is different since each state can enforce their own regulations. California is a well-known example but certainly not the only state that enforces its own laws. Several other states enact the same laws as California and eventually the federal level (EPA) follows suit. Canada models their regulations on the California regulatory agency (CARB - California Air Resources Board). The environmental regulations in Germany and throughout Europe are among the strictest in the world and have been enforced far longer than regulations in North America. Therefore, all einszett products meet or beat these regulations and even go as far as to meet ISO 140001 standards for environmental management (basically, not only do the products meet the strict standards but strict standards are enforced during the manufacturing phase of the product cycle). So what's the issue? CARB has a different way of regulating product than Europe and sometimes their methods put products into different categories than they should. A great example of this is einszett Glas Polish. Many of our customers wonder why we no longer offer this product even though it works great and receives fantastic reviews. Well, the reason is because CARB classifies Glas Polish in the same category as a glass cleaner. As many of you know, Glas Polish is a polish designed to polish glass and is similar to car polishes and metal polishes. Yes, it cleans glass but car polishes clean paint but that doesn't mean it should be categorized as a car wash or a quick detailer, which have much stricter regulations than car polishes. So, it's impossible to get Glas Polish to meet the very low VOC requirements of glass cleaner unless we could miraculously change it to 98% water and 2% cleaner (essentially, this is what we would have to do). Cost The other factor that goes into deciding which product is imported is based on cost. First, the cost to make any necessary changes to the formulations in order for it to meet North America environmental regulations. This can become very costly often involving using new methods and ingredients so that the product performs the same or better than the original formula. The other factor has to do with currency exchange rates. With the Euro heading back to 1.60 the exchange rate becomes a heavy burden. This means that our US Dollar purchases a lot less product. We have to pay 60% more for the product than what it would cost if we paid in Euros. It can turn a $5 product into $9. Most of our customers would find this too costly despite the performance and result of the product. I hope this gives you a better idea of the thought process that goes into deciding which product will be introduced in North America next. You can expect to see more products arrive in the near future as we continue to expand the line. If you want to know if a certain product will be available, please feel free to shoot over an email or call. All the best...