TTI and Oreck

[sebo_fan]

Bissell aren't exactly producing in the U.S though are they? In Europe they have a contract with Samsung to product most of their "dry" only vacuums. As far as I know, most if not all are made in China. Not much difference to TTI manufacture worldwide...

If it was the case that the Oreck concept didn't work, why else would other brands jump in and produce their own? In my mind, they may well be "electric sweepers," but I don't know of any electric sweeper with such a large bag capacity. in the U.S Orecks may be cheap and that may well be the market that they cater to - to me the Oreck is the last of the vacuums available worldwide that offer a soft bag. Thus, anyone looking for an alternative to the classic Hoover uprights can at least buy numerous brands in the U.S that offer the similar soft bag idea.

In Europe and UK there aren't that many soft bag uprights available. And, an upright only without tools on board. There's Kirby or Oreck; a real swing from mega expensive to expensive cost price wise.

 

[stricklybojack]

;-]

The popularity of hardwood floors has out a lot of pressure on vacuum companies. Dyson/Miele is the vacuum of the younger generation, Oreck is a brand of an older generation which is now passing away. Oreck's relatively high standard price and lack of on board tools sealed their fate. Throw away vacuums are popular because for so many people anything else is too much learning curve these days.
Old man Oreck saw all this and no doubt much more and sold after whatever they tried to counter the situation came up short.
Text-book industry consolidation, nothing new.
I love their products for no real reason one the one hand, and because of the general spunk they embody on the other hand. And i should add because, for the job they are intended to accomplish, they are genius. All most everybody forgets that last one. Some do say it however, and they post here, like Tom Gasko.
BigLots on coupon day or Craigslist made them affordable for most everybody who really wanted one so lets not re-run that episode.
They had a long run on basically one product that wasn't an iPhone, so they knew how to market, 'cept that market changed.
Kirby Dan is right, under the circumstances we should be grateful for the hope TTI will do something interesting with the name rather than let it languish in history's dust bin like Indian Motorcycle did for so long. Which brings up AMF buying Harley to the jeers of seemingly everyone...but look how that turned out.

 

[orecklover]

But...

We have seen what TTI has done to Hoover and Bissell. There shouldn't be any hope! TTI practically ruined those brands!

 

[kirbysthebest]

I guess I was unaware of TTI purchasing Bissell

Shows how uninformed I am. . . again.

From Wikipedia: Must not have been updated.
Bissell Inc., also known as Bissell Homecare, is a privately owned vacuum cleaner and floor care product manufacturing corporation headquartered in Walker, Michigan in Greater Grand Rapids; the headquarters has a Grand Rapids, Michigan postal address.[3][4] The company is the number one manufacturer of floor care products in North America in terms of sales, with 20% marketshare.[5]

Apparently from the Business Journal dated 04-26-2013, the Bissell family has not been informed of the sale either.

In any case, Bissell makes some good machines. They, like TTI are trying to make the disposable full featured vacuums that the market seems to demand at a certain price point. I do see a variety of vacuums at the curb on trash day, and by variety I mean from many manufacturers, but they all appear to be in the one year life cycle genre. Properly cared for and maintained these machines could have lasted longer, but I think the price point is the driving factor on how someone cares for a piece of equipment.

Back in my Mother's day, you paid for a quality vacuum and you cared for it because it was an investment. I had a neighbor that had her Hoover since her wedding in 1950. That little machine never failed to operate when she pulled it out of the closet. In those days that vacuum may have cost the equivalent of three months pay, so it was cared for.

Today people buy vacuums that may only be equal to a days pay. Due to this price point they tend to not care for them any better than they would their broom. The attitude is "if it breaks we'll get a new one." This is not to say that you can't still get quality for a price, but there are also many cases where price does not equate quality either. But the consumer is the one in charge with their wallet.

[this post was last edited: 12/26/2014-08:12]

 

[sebo_fan]

The attitude "if it breaks. we'll get another one," isn't just a consumer led changing opinion.

Brands these days like Bissell and others don't care any more to offer any kind of brand loyalty. There are no longer service personnel hosted by the company to service vacuums any more, perhaps in part due to cheaper costs that the owner can repair themselves - if they can be bothered. But I'd say this attitude of replacing a vacuum with another just because it has a cheap cost price comes down to a balance of what the company (or not, nowadays) are offering in terms of extra support.

As the owner of several Vax products since they were absored by TTI, I get "loyalty" emails from factory sale discounts and special codes. ALL owners who have registered their lengthy warranties with the Vax/TTI products get this email unless they have purposefully declined the offer. To me that's a loyalty bonus even if it means I need to spend money with Vax from time to time - but I don't always use the code, I pass it on to other UK based forums that benefit buyers or on social media sites.

 

[stricklybojack]

Hoover was a perfect company..

rolling in cash and too many customers to count...and then they were bought? No the company was on the skids for decades and then they were bought. What put them on the skids? Lack of customers for their product at the price point they needed to get to be profitable. The fact of the matter is in rust bowl America, good 'ol blank inc. (insert company name of your choice) was facing a different market place and not able to adapt in time to placate it's owners who then sold. A typical culprit is cuts to the R and D budgets and things like that. But even that isn't so simple because some companies survive with old designs where others falter with new ones.
Kirby sold out to Berkshire Hathaway and made it work, but they are not the same company either it would seem.
The rub is so many here are delightfully faithful to brands who may not deserve such loyalty, or at least such loyalty is out of place, as these are profit driven entities from start to finish. Some companies do it with a flair, style, or even a stated desire to better the world; but at the end of the day the marketplace is often not as high minded.
If one considers the rate of inflation and the cost of most of the new vacuums that are sold today you can begin to fathom the enormity of the situation facing these businesses over the last four decades.

 

[kirbysthebest]

Much of what was done to Hoover, happened before the TTI acquisition. Under Maytag the Hoover company was a possession in their portfolio, but as stated above they provided a smaller R&D. Once Maytag was sold to Whirlpool, who had already gotten out of the vac business once, it was speculated they would part it out. The sale to TTI did save Hoover, but not the Hoover of Yore.

Another company, Royal, owned by TTI has not done badly under their ownership. They did try to bring out a new concept, the Powercast, but consumers did not flock to it. They still build the Everlast series that is a direct air solidly built machine.

My experience with other Royal lines is limited, but I wouldn't say the company was ruined under TTI. I can't say that I didn't hate the idea of these companies being sold to foreign owners, because I did; then again Chrysler has changed to foreign ownership twice in the last decade or so, nothing stays the same--unfortunately.

I wanted to add, and this is my opinion and only my opinion. I think that Oreck was a solid company with David Oreck as a great spokesman and marketer. I think Oreck's problems began after Hurricane Katrina caused so much damage resulting in a great debt load being added to the company. Even with insurance, that hardly covers everything, the cost of moving, retooling, etc. was hard on the company as it was on many other companies that suffered this amount of loss.
[this post was last edited: 12/26/2014-13:16]

 

[sebo_fan]

I thought Oreck were solid until they released that bagless upright.

 

[sleepdoc]

The XL21 was a good machine. Didn't care for anything prior to that or any of the lower models (all of them; that was the TOL). The Freedom and Supralite are better vacuums. I have the TOL models with metal rollers, HEPA bags, lifetime belts with protectors, and I have all of them a lot, including different Orecks. I'll take the Simplicity/Riccar without even having to think about it.

 

[kirbysthebest]

Sleepdoc

Agree

 

[daknx1994]

Has anyone ever heard of "If it ain't broke don't fix it?" Why would Oreck stay with practically the same design all of these years if it did not work? As I have said the classic Oreck's may not clean the best, but to the average consumer it does not really matter. Someone earlier made the statement of when people go to the store for a vacuum they are looking for one with "sleek designs or a specific brand." That is how it is at my store when people come in for... hold your breath...Oreck's! Or even Simplicity. People have heard of these names somewhere either the internet or a friend/relative. Also the number of younger people who buy Oreck's or Simplicity Freedom surprise me. It is not just the elderly who make these purchases. And yes, Oreck's can last as I have seen numerous come in, some that are in cleaning services, and some that are in the 15+ life span. Lastly what has been hurting Oreck financially other than Katrina is Oreck themselves. Oreck did not help their dealers out hardly at all. If Oreck ran a special sale on an item online or by direct selling, none of the stores could match that price, they always had to stay above it. Oreck was not to fast at shipping out product to their dealers either. Dealers would have to wait for product to be sent that has already been paid for thus holding up sales. Also Oreck was so far into direct selling that they had not ventured into the big box market until recently.

 

[orecklover]

well...

The oreck XL21 is an excellent machine and could probably out clean any riccar or simplicity.

 

[fantomfan]

Based on Tacony's tests

The Oreck XL-21 pulled out less than 20% of the test dirt. Tacony's best carpet cleaning tandem air design, pulled out 89%, more than Oreck and the Dyson combined.

 

[tolivac]

The vac place near me carrys Oreck.If a customer asks for one-he sells it to him-no questions asked.He won't bother trying to demo the Simplicity Freedom vacs right beside the Orecks.Oreck customers want just that--ORECK wether we thinks it works or not.

 

[tolivac]

Tacanoy tandem air machines-we really cannot honestly compare these to Oreck vacuums-The Tacanoy machines are FULL sized vacuums-a died in the wool Oreck customer won't like those no matter how well they perform-the Oreck is MUCH lighter to use and carry.-esp up the stairs.You could compare the Oreck to the Tacanoy Freedom style vacuums,though.

 

[fantomfan]

You are correct

Both are very different machines. My point though was that Oreck's best upright cannot outclean a Tacony product.

 

[kirbysthebest]

The Tandem air

Is a totally different class of vacuum than the 8lb, actually 9lb machines, however, our junior member did make the bold statement "could probably out clean any Riccar or Simplicity." so fantomfan was just advising him of test results available to the contrary. 


 

 

[blackheart]

21 better than a Simplicity?

Not a chance. When compared to a Simplicity Freedom, an older 2 speed (i call it an ultra because that's what the person who sold it to me called it) and a Hoover platinum Lightweight; The simplicity came out on top. followed by the XL-21, the ultra, and the hoover did the poorest job.

Keep in mind the debris below is what was pulled out AFTER these machine made their passes, it was done a while back so i am not sure how many passes each got.

I do like Orecks but i feel their performance is mediocre compared to high end brands but better than a lot of the cheap junky machines available.

 

[orecklover]

Oreck...

The oreck is sill the all time best

 

[ralph123]

So who did the most damage to Oreck? The competition from Hoover's 8lb vacuum and the Riccar/Simplicity 9 pounders? Or perhaps the folksy James Dyson and his sales pitch? Shark?