The Inflatable MoonwalkBusiness – Part 5

Posted: 30th November 2011 by admin in Uncategorized
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As the smaller inflatable bouncy companies, started to see the top star tier bouncer companies rake in most of the available orders, they started to try to expand by having companies band together and form new partnerships and bring in new partners and even get bank loans to expand.

Those that couldn’t form any of the above scenario’s reverted back to rental companies  which were forced to accept the status quo or in the end, just folded their business. This was actually the second big shake up since the 9-11 to hit the industry.

As the top star tier companies enjoyed their new found success, one particular company, after trying to expand and catch up, decided to do something to make a difference. He travelled to China, found a company that could produce inflatables and partnered up with them whereas he shared idea’s designs and quality control methods. Even with the cost of shipping overseas, he was able to offer an inflatable product at even a lower cost than the top star tier companies.

This was a major shift that would continue to ripple for the next 10 years. This moved caused this company to become the talk of the industry, this was just unheard of. Personally I think many others had wished they had thought of this. Living in China in order to cooperate with the Chinese, he was able to teach them all the methods and methodology behind building inflatable products. He returned to the trade show floors with a whole new line of quality designed inflatables, but even now a lower cost than the star tier. The rental companies who bought these inflatables looked them over good. The low price points on these were hard to overlook.

They looked and they bought. Now the ground was starting to level for this one company. Now skip down about a year, and one of the top tier star companies took note. If they are selling quantity now, what could they do if they looked into China?  Well they made the move. They used their strong financial background to form a relationship with a china company also. After some growing pains moving from America to china they began production in China with all their new designs. To move this up a notch, they kept the factory building around the clock and started a new concept for the inflatable industry called inventory. They produced around the clock building up an inventory then shipping it over to America. Now they just didn’t have, high quality and low price, but also had a “buy it now” or “in Stock” approach.

The selling angle had the design element, it had the low price, but now you didn’t have to wait for 3-5 weeks. It was “in Stock” buy it now and take it home. This was everything in regards to features that rental companies wanted and needed.

Now the stakes just got higher again. Where was it to end? The ceiling was getting higher and the smaller companies were falling further behind.         Continued in Part 6

The Inflatable Moonwalk Business – Part 4

Posted: 30th November 2011 by admin in Uncategorized
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Moonwalks and inflatable bouncer rental supply companies were enjoying the new low prices and the larger extent of new designs coming out of the factories. However, the factories were basically divided into two tiers, 1) the automated computer designers and 2) the hand crafters. Within the marketplace, the automated design companies were gaining ground fast on the hand crafters; however the first tier level companies were discovering that the competition in their tier was growing fierce.

All the selling companies invested in bright and shiny, high quality new product catalogs that even at today’s standards would be the envy of most publishers. Business was climbing back after the 911 attacks. Trade show floors were gathering buyers from all around the world; therefore factories began to focus on displaying their new designs and inflatables in these trade shows.

But something was wrong. As the rental industry climbed back, they visited these trade shows but became more consumer conscious as they saw the manufacturer’s competing viscously, by not only creating new beautiful designs, but started to drop the prices in exchange for more volume. In order for these computer designers to justify their automation investment they needed more volume. They focused on the design element by offering the so called “eye candy” to the renter’s inventory so they would see that by adding these new beautiful designs to entice their customers over their competition. Then for the manufacturer to convince the renter to pay for it right there on the trade show floor, the price of the product was dropped. Drop the price a little more and we’ll give you 3 or more products. Well then, how much for 5 units was then proposed? On and on it went. Buy 2, buy 3, yet buy 5 but give me a better price.

The rental companies started to beef up their inventories based on the fact that the more they purchased, the better the deal they could get. The rental companies liked it and so did the manufacturers since now they were basically running assembly line operations, staying busy and paying their high production line expenses. Now this sounds like the overall industry business is heating up again but not really. Actually only the top tier design companies were getting the advantage.

Now there were the star companies in that top tier, getting the bulk orders, and in return for the big dollars rolling in for these few select companies, they were able to now punch out even more new designs. The rental companies would actually go to the shows and plan to buy from these select companies. Oh, they would walk the show and look at the other companies but by shows end, they were seen at the top star tier companies placing the bulk orders for the lower prices but still would get a product with high design and high quality.

This did not sit well with the other companies as they exited the show floors with little or no orders. The small inflatable bouncy companies tried to innovate with special designs and products. They even dropped their price as they ended up with a few sales due to the uniqueness of the product, but they were still no match to making the money like the top stars. They now were getting desperate to make the money so they could expand like the top tier group.

Continued in Part 5

The Inflatable Moonwalk Business – Part 3

Posted: 30th November 2011 by admin in Uncategorized
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Up until 2001 Sept. 11, the inflatable business was booming. Everybody had money to spend, the corporations, the Rental Companies and of course the home owners to rent for their parties.
After Sept 11, everything stopped! Nobody was partying. Nobody was in a festive mood.
Nobody was renting inflatables, rental companies were not buying new products so the factories started to lay off its workers. The rental companies did not hurt too much as their overhead was low however the factories had to pay the price. Fast growth and the sudden stop were hard to overcome. The factories learned many lessons in this time of transition.
As the market slowly came back, and I emphasize slowly, manufacturers were quick to realize that the customer base landscape had changed. No more were the rental companies lining up to place orders. Instead factories had to reach out to the rental companies and find out who was actually in the buying phase.
This increased the pressure on factories to service the client more and actually start giving deals and specials. Now factories had to compete in a fashion that they had not done in the past. Rental companies on the comeback realized they had the upper hand in purchasing as factories would cater special deals and terms in return for an order. Gone were the days when a rental guy liked what he saw and then placed cash in the hand and in most cases just paid in full right at the order table.
The rental customer demanded lower price and better terms in placing an order with the factory. Pricing and costs were now in the downward trend. Good for the rental buyer but now more pressure on the factories to become more efficient.
Factories started to implement more assembly line thinking in the building of their products. The term “Computer Design” entered the vocabulary to make building inflatables more efficient and keep quality high. Off the shelf software’s had not yet become available to the inflatable industry so companies had to use two or three different software programs to navigate the process of flattening a design so that it could be fabricated from a 2D material and then constructed to form a 3D shape thus making the custom design process faster while maintaining the quality.
After the computer software’s were implemented then came the automated computer cutting tables to rapidly cut these computer-designed pieces and parts. The whole process was now 60% automated (sewing machine labour had not changed) so to lower the cost of each unit but at the same time produce more units faster and more efficiently.
Rental companies where now picking up the pace. Orders began to increase but not at the levels before 9/11. Factories were forced to compete with each other at aggressive levels. Factories that had not yet upgraded their operations fell into a lower tier. This lower tier found that in order to compete had to lower their prices even though their efficiency was still not as advanced as the first tier group. So, instead of running an assembly line operation they instigated a one off special design service but still kept prices at a lower cost. This battle between the two tiers forced a subtle price war. The rental companies loved it as they were able to offer a bigger inventory for a better investment that they were used to in the past.
However, all was not calm.  Another shift in the industry was about to take place. To be continued in part 4.

The inflatable Moonwalk Business – Part 2

Posted: 26th February 2011 by admin in Uncategorized
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The growth pattern of the Inflatable moonwalk and inflatable obstacle course business was staggering over the course of twenty years. Not only did thousands of inflatable moonwalk rental companies pop up over the years, but also so did the manufacturing base along with it. It was a self-feeding frenzy as more rental companies needed more manufacturer support and more manufacturers needed more rental companies to sustain sales figures and bottom lines.

Competition in both sectors, the rental market and the manufacturer market, was heating up. The rental companies were beginning to feel the effects of having several rental companies in their same town. The manufacturers were feeling the effects at trade shows as they started to compete with each other for the sales to rental companies.

In the rental markets, business was good. In earlier times, one company would have a huge territory encompassing several cities or towns. Then it boiled down to one company per city and before long, others would notice the demand for these rental services and upon seeing the manufacturer ads would make the under 20K investment and therefore, before you know it, several rental companies were up and running in that same city all competing for that family dollar.

For the manufacturers, the same path was their destiny. In the early days (1980’s) there were a handful of pioneers. These were the innovators, with there skilled hands and sharp designing techniques, were able to carve out of flat rolled vinyl a beautiful shape inflatable bouncer fun house, with all the trimmings to capture any child’s imagination.

As these pioneers grew to meet the demand, they hired good people that had good creativity and skilled hands. These skills were needed since no actual training formality for inflatable building was available. All these new employees had to learn the skill of inflatable building from their pioneering mentors. Much time and energy to teach this new inflatable building skill was invested into each employee.

As the demand increased, the manufacturer warehouses filled up and orders were bouncing out the door, literally. Employees, after learning the skills, found reasons to not be happy and took liberty to leave the company. They then turned around, leased a building, purchased sewing machines and became a manufacturer themselves offering their inflatables to the hot growing rental market sector.

During the first 10 years of this 20-year boom, Inflatable moonwalk rental companies soared. Many companies expanded their rental offerings by entering into the corporate market which held company picnics every year along with Christmas parties and corporate challenges. Many of these rental companies added specialty items to their offering list and therefore became huge party rental supply companies with warehouses full of inflatable amusement rides. Rental companies morphed from mom and pop part-time to full time companies and now into corporate entities with full time employees and warehouse staff. This was now a time that the number, 1 million or more, was being used to describe sales figures for these rental companies.

Again manufacturers were following the same path. Ironically, they were also creating the path at the same time since by designing and building these bigger and more extravagant inflatable’s, it actually helped fuel the corporate rentals as corporations wanted bigger and better inflatable’s ever year. So the rental companies were actually forced to purchase the next big thing. This was definitely a win-win situation or rather a virtual partnership that was unexpectedly created between the rental company and the manufacturer.

All was good. Profits were growing, corporations were renting, and manufacturing was expanding, until life as we know it, changed. Sept 11, 2001. For the inflatable moonwalk business, this was about to change also. Continued in part 3.

Inflatable Moonwalk Business – Mom and Pop to Global Shift. Part 1

Posted: 17th February 2011 by admin in Uncategorized
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Inflatable bouncers, moonwalks, obstacle courses, no matter how you coin it, they are still just a bunch of sewn up vinyl airbags that when inflated with an air blower, will take on a specific shape in order to please that child’s imagination.

When inflatable moonwalks came onto the mainstream market in the 1980’s, very few companies were involved. It was just a handful of companies who were pioneering the way into the party rental supply market.

Families had not heard of this new birthday concept whereas they could rent an inflatable moonwalk or obstacle course for their backyard birthday party only for a few hours or half day.

It took some time to educate families to this new fun filled activity. Leaving the scene was the old “pin the tail” on the donkey and the old “egg on a spoon” race. Families now had the opportunity to bring a true carnival activity to their very own back yard.

As one family got hold of this new activity, the excitement spread through word of mouth as mothers told the mothers of the other children how this new moonwalk activity not only kept the children laughing and jumping with joy, but also found out that it was a good aerobic activity that help burn off that extra stored up energy and then in the evening of that day, the children were fast asleep since burning off that energy. The parents were elated. What an added benefit all around.

The pioneering inflatable companies grew over the years generating a good income. They approached the inflatable manufacturer’s requesting more bigger and diverse shapes as families wanted to rent a new inflatable design and shape for their next party.

Inflatable manufacture’s realizing the hot ticket they were holding in their hand, started to challenge each other by inventing new shapes and designs so that they could draw the attention of the party supply rental companies business.

As friends of the party supply rental business noticed that there was a strong ability to make good money renting out inflatable moonwalks and obstacle courses, they too contacted the manufacturer’s to purchase a “party business” package. Add to this market now another rental business, now up and running to meet the hot demand of the mothers of families wanting this service.

The manufacturer’s, not only realizing it was a hot ticket to sell to the party rental supply channel, and seeing that other people are wanting into this new hot market, further realized that this was a huge up and coming opportunity to increase their sales by encouraging a business start up model.

Manufacturer’s began to advertise in trade shows and trade magazines for mom and pops looking for an added income that this was a perfect part time weekend business and that it could be rolled into a full time venture just by adding more inventory to meet the party rental demand.

Rental companies have grown by leaps and bounds. Families have continued to rent inflatable moonwalks and obstacle courses. Manufacturers have flourished and even due to the demand, new manufacturers have come onto the scene pushing their new designs. This whirlwind of activity continued to grow and expand over the 90’s and into the new millennium. Was this an ever-lasting growth model with no end in site or was this the cause, in part, of a global shift?  Stay tuned for part 2.

Choosing The Right Inflatable Water Slides

Posted: 8th January 2011 by admin in Uncategorized
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Different size inflatable water slides and obstacle courses are made for all different ages. You could even find an inflatable moonwalk that is big enough for adults to join in the fun. Inflatable bouncers and inflatable jumping castles come in a variety of specific colors you can choose for a girl or for a boy. Mutual colors and designs are even made for boys and girls alike.

Inflatable attractions may be used at family entertainment parks as you may visit one to play for family filled fun day. There at the parks they will usually have supervision to watch over the children while they play. You will find that most of them will charge for entrance. So take into account that if you frequently visit these family entertainment parks for your children to play on these inflatable fun structures that you may want to actually invest into purchasing your very own inflatable moonwalk for your backyard.

Buying an inflatable bouncy castle or inflatable water slide for your yard can save you money in the long run. You will be able to use it anytime without having to pay for gas for your automobile or pay the heavy entrance fees. You may find that you kids may be in the way while your trying to study, entertain a guest or maybe just trying to clean the house, but now you have your own entertainment device in the backyard so now you can send them outside to play in your own backyard for hours of fun and excitement.

Every parent desires that your kids experience fun playing without the threat of injury. Injury or mishap may come from just being around a simple pool or swing set. You must be careful and mindful when children are at play with any device, and have someone of maturity nearby to watch over them. If you cannot watch them or if to busy, try getting someone to watch and/or check on them for you. That is the best thing to do since; an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to children.

Having your own inflatable water slide or moonwalk bouncy is very beneficial while they are out of school for the summer in that they will be able to entertain themselves and not be getting on your nerves about entertainment and telling you that they have nothing to do or it is to hot outside. Any inflatable slides with a water attachment will not only provide those extra fun filled hours of enjoyment but will help keep them cool in the hot summer climate.

Here are a few safety precautions when thinking of purchasing your own inflatable moonwalk. Make sure you choose the right size for the age or ages it is being bought for. You do not want to buy an inflatable for older kids that were meant for smaller kids. You will end up with bumps and bruise on the kids since it is basically too tight for bounce activity. Be sure someone is watching them when the little ones are present. The little ones can get tossed about uncontrollable and may cause injury. This advice will help you provide for your children many hours of enjoyable family fun and excitement. Rest assured after a long day of fun bouncing activity, your children will fall fast asleep when time for bed.

Inflatable Water Slides The New Beach Event

Posted: 11th November 2010 by admin in Uncategorized
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Water slides, Inflatable water slides and beach front recreational water toys for the hotel supplies market are the new focus in order to provide beach resort guests’ with all the necessary leisure activities to turn that guests’ summer days into a fun filled memorable family event.

SLIDEZILLA, the World’s Largest Inflatable Water Slide, is the most ultimate fun filled family entertainment inflatable to hit the beach! It’s portable, it’s a temporary structure, needs no special licensing and has an overall length of 170ft long and stands 4 stories high. Create huge impact with your guests’ and large income revenues with your Inflatable water slide.

SlideZilla is comparable to typical water park equipment generating almost the same income, but at only a fraction of the cost compared to other steel and concrete water park equipment.

Beach guests will be screaming with delight as they splash down SlideZilla landing safely and harmlessly at the bottom of the 75ft padded runway only to scurry back up our specially designed plastic stairs to do it all over again.

AN INFLATABLE WATER SLIDE IS AN AMAZING INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUR RESORT

Slidezilla is a temporary structure designed on the same scale as attractions in major theme parks having a footprint that can be seen from over a quarter of a mile away, automatically making the hotel a major area destination for residents and general beach tourists alike. Built with a sturdy vinyl construction, embedded with ultra violet inhibitors, SlideZilla can easily accommodate over 400 guests in one hour while generating a healthy profit margin for the resort.

To compare the SlideZilla inflatable water slide, it can be installed approximately at only $10 a square foot whereas a permanent water slide structure is installed at $300-$500 a square foot, depending on size and choice of model.

SlideZilla inflates in about 15 minutes. The two high output electric and two backup safety blowers will inflate your four story high water slide and then have it deflated in less than 25 minutes so it can be utilize a new amusement park attraction every day in no time at all! The evening close down is a snap, just deflate it and close the gates (if fenced off)!

End of season tear down is simple by shutting off the blowers, deflating then rolling the unit up and placing into its optional steel containers or into its own 10’x20’ storage shed.

WATER PARK EQUIPMENT, INFLATABLES AND WATER SLIDES WILL BRAND THE HOTEL

Aside from the income opportunity, SlideZilla is a branding opportunity for the resort in that it will not only provide the hotel/beach guests with a fun filled family recreation activity but will provide a strong memorable event that they will consider returning with their family to the resort. Families from other resorts on the beach will be attracted to your inflatable water slide from a mile away. They will come and pay a couple of dollars for the slide ride or will pay 20 to 30 dollars for an all-day pass. They too will have brand recognition with that resort and will think about coming to that resort next visit.

Moonwalker, Bouncy, Obstacle Course Intro

Posted: 31st October 2010 by admin in Uncategorized
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Inflated Games Systems offers you a wide variety of inflatable items such as hot air shaped balloon, rooftop balloons, advertising balloons,  inflatable slides and bouncy’s, and bouncy castles for any occasion. We have been in the inflatable business since 1988. We started out renting roof top balloons to businesses all over the Greater Toronto Region. Realizing quickly that our balloons would need servicing, we purchased our first sewing machine.

Inflatables built into the shape of slides, moonwalks and hot air balloons actually create a sense of animation for the average family, bringing excitement and joy when viewed by the human eye due to the softness and bright coloring of each air-filled design. When hanging as a point of purchase display, the inflatable advertising product will highlight the brand capturing the viewers’ attention allowing the eye to follow down and capture the actual product into their mind.

Our design personnel will take your brand, logo or product and transform it into an eye catching, head turning, light weight, easily transportable, inflatable. We’ll even enlarge your inflatable to create a touch point interaction so people can jump and play with your brand.

Our first custom project back in 1988 was a giant submarine sandwich. The corporate head office purchased the inflatable, then leased it back to each franchiser for their grand opening at only a fraction of the cost had they purchased or rented an inflatable themselves. This proved feasible as each store had a great impact in the community during their grand opening and the head office recouped their initial investment in under two years. This style of purchasing and recouping investment continues today.

We continued through the years, building giant cell phones, pop cans, hockey pucks, character replica’s etc. Later in the years, our product line developed into inflatable amusement products. We designed and built bouncy or moonwalker, as they have been coined, for the amusement supply industry. Consumers and corporations rent these products for their special events. Products in this group range from bouncers to slides to obstacle courses. Corporations have found these products to be an excellent vehicle for advertising to the average consumer. Bouncers are printed with state of the art digital imaging or they can be designed around the corporate product to create a “touch point” interaction.

Point of purchase type inflatable advertising can also be used as give-aways and incentive programs. Children love inflatable advertising products so much that they will play and share with friends their branded play toy.

For children and their parents, larger type inflatable advertising products are designed known as amusement inflatables, which are built with your product and logo in mind. Create an interactive touch point with the children as they jump in the inflatable and as the parents stand by and enjoy watching their children interact with your brand!

Enjoy the great advantages that these inflatables bring! Inflated Game Systems proudly serves places from Toronto, Canada and to the World.