Shop vac is over

VacuumLand – Vintage & Modern Vacuum Enthusiasts

Help Support VacuumLand:

For an earlier entry here on Royal metal vacuums-They were sold under Dirt Devil name at Cosco,and Sams Club.That action pissed off the local Royal dealers-you could buy a "Dirt Devil" metal Royal version for less than the "Royal" branded one.Then the DD metal uprights just disappeared from the market.If you find one-it IS a collectors item now.Commercial folks bought them.This was like over 10 years ago.
 
Shop Vac's website is back up and running again.

Rex, I'm curious to hear of where you heard that the Dirt Devil commercial uprights upsetted the Royal dealers. I actually find this hard to be true, maybe it just upsetted yours. Royal mainly created the Dirt Devil brand to sell their vacuums cheaper at department stores. Not everyone could've afforded to buy a Royal back then. In fact, I know there are some states in the country where you'd have to drive tens or hundreds of miles to go over to a vacuum dealer store than rather drive less over to a discount store. Or have it delivered at your front door step. Same with Eureka's Sanitaire brand, I bet it was easier for consumers to buy the yellow Eureka commercial vacuums at Sam's Club rather than ordering Sanitaires from a local dealer.
 
I did see the Dirt Devil Royal uprights at the Sams Club out here years ago.Should have bought one but didn't.Bill the owner of Vacuum Cleaner Hospital saw the DD Royal metals as well-teed him off and he was going to drop Royal.Sold more Riccar instead.He no longer stocked Royal but would order if someone wanted one.Figure the DD Royal metl upright would be rare now.They were marked as commercial vacuums.
 
New buyer of Shop-Vac announced
TOP NEWS
There's new hope for the building that once held an estimated 400 Shop-Vac employees that were put out of work in September

by: Sean Coffey

Posted: Jan 5, 2021 / 02:40 PM EST / Updated: Jan 5, 2021 / 06:24 PM EST

WILLIAMSPORT, LYCOMING COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU-TV) — A Williamsport-based company that closed up shop abruptly after over 50 years in the region has announced they have a buyer.

The well-known Shop-Vac corporation announced in September they’d be shutting down their facilities, leaving hundreds out of work in an instant. After a sale of the company was announced Christmas Eve, we now have the name of the buyer, who says they intend to bring back those employees once operations return to normal.

When Shop-Vac suddenly announced its closure in September, VP of operations Bill Cooper said he and his staff were blindsided.

“There were a lot of hurt feelings. There were a lot of people who have been here for many, many years. And they felt that they were owed a little more,” Cooper said.

That decision, made after a sale of the company fell through, left hundreds of Shop-Vac employees jobless.

But over the holidays, the company announced they’d been sold, successfully this time, to industrial manufacturer GreatStar.

“We’re back. We’re going to be bigger and better, we think, than ever before. And we’re ready to move ahead,” said Gary Duboff, President and CEO, GreatStar Tools USA.

Duboff says the company plans to rehire laid-off employees, but with Shop-Vac’s sales, marketing, and supply chain gutted from the shutdown, it may take a little time.

“Our intention is to bring those jobs back. What I need is, I need patience. We need people to understand that we’re starting over,” Duboff said.

Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jason Fink says the impact of the sale can’t be overstated.

“While there are jobs out there, being able to replace good quality jobs like this are hard. And being able to know that people are gonna have the opportunity to get their jobs back once they have their house in order here,” Fink said.

Fink is hopeful GreatStar’s diverse manufacturing capacity could even grow the brand and with it, the number of jobs.

“They make other types of tools, and being able to see what they were able to acquire with some of the plastics manufacturing that’s done with Shop-Vac, could allow them to look at other things that they could produce here,” he said.

A difficult year for workers everywhere, ending with a touch of hope.

“It’s such a relief. It’s a huge relief, especially over the Christmas holidays. Just a perfect Christmas gift,” Cooper said.

Duboff stressed that while the company plans to bring its workers back, it’s not as simple as flipping the switch. When the previous owners shut down operations in September, that effectively eliminated any ability to market and sell the product.

So, once those capacities are up and running again, things can slowly move back to normal.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top