John, you're right. Simplicity has now become the mainstream brand, that can be sold by any vac shop, & any retailer whether in-store or online. Wayfair.ca in Canada is currently carrying the entire Simplicity line. I think Tacony decided to drop the Fuller Brush & Maytag brands as they didn't want to pay the licencing fees to use the name. They must have thought they needed only 1 specialty brand & 1 mainstream brand, so just let any shop sell Simplicity as well as have access to the Riccar machines. Not only do they get more exposure, they also figure if a customer is in a vac shop that carries both brands, the customer wins because they have more choice.
However, the consequence they are going to pay later on is resentment from their dealers. When they had Riccar & Simplicity both as specialty brands, each dealer in a specific city or within certain miles/kilometers of each other could only carry one brand or the other, & that their brand was "unique". They each had their own territory. Both brands had slightly different styling & features so it separated them from the other brand their competitor was selling. Now, any dealer can be approved to sell the Riccar brand....there could be 2 dealers in the same city carrying the exact same machines....so the consumer could play both dealers & force them to compete on the price of the machine to get the sale. Better for the consumer's pocketbook, but not for the dealer's profit & livelihood!
As for the current Simplicity models in the lineup, they will be the white bagged upright, white bagless upright, white S60 Spiffy stick vacuum, the S65 stick vacuum, white Flash hand vacuum & the pink Simplicity Jill straight suction canister. From my understanding, the Cordless Freedom, corded Freedom, Symmetry upright, Sport compact canister & A Go Go stick vacuum are all officially discontinued, they are just appearing on the website until existing stock is officially sold out. It's a shame they did this instead of just keeping either the Fuller Brush or Maytag name & just dropping 1 & keeping 1 mainstream brand & 2 specialty brands, but they must have felt pressure to be more competitive in today's marketplace.
Rob
PS - They also dropped the Riccar Prima with the Compact powerhead from the lineup too. HUGE MISTAKE considering Miele sells a compact powerhead with certain machines in their lineup, & home with a mix of hard floors & area rugs are becoming more popular. They should have kept it for people with mixed flooring like that, especially since the Riccar compact powerhead is superior to Miele's compact powerhead. It glides easier on hard floors, stands up on it's own, has a more aggressive brushroll that cleans better, & has a headlight. The Miele compact SEB217 is ok, but definitely needs a update & improvements.
. Did you also notice the new riccar tandem air units have the simplicity headlights? I thought that was pretty interesting. I do however think that if I HAD to choose the brand to keep, it would be riccar. I love the looks of their machines over the simplicity units.
