Starting to close down ecoLightbulbs
We started ecoLightbulbs two years ago to help fight global warming by encouraging people to adopt and use CFLs. In early 2007, CFLs were starting to come down in price, but were still quite expensive. They most sold in the $6-8/bulb range across online retailers as well as brick and mortar stores.
Over the past two years, the price of CFLs has dropped dramatically as major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, and others all started heavily promoting these type of light bulbs. The New York Times wrote a great article about how Wal-Mart was helping to drive CFL usage and set a goal of selling 100 million CFLs in 2008. In 2009, through the effort of these companies the prices of CFLs has reached a point where they are comparable to ecoLightbulbs.
Today, 2/21/2009, the price for a 6 pack of 23W CFL from Walmart.com is $19.32 or $3.22/bulb. At ecoLightbulbs our price is $3.09, which is marked up 25% from the $2.49 we buy the bulbs from our manufacturer. The markup is mostly there to cover shipping costs as overall we break even. The difference of 13 cents is not enough to justify continuing to run ecoLightbulbs. Big retailers sell hundreds of millions of CFLs a year, so they probably buy the bulbs at a fraction of our cost. So they can sell at ~$3.00 per bulb and make a profit. On the other hand, at ecoLightbulbs, we've put together a scrappy team of volunteers to run our business and our cost structure barely allows us to break even at ~$3.00 per bulb. This just shows the power of big business when it puts its mind to solving a problem.
I'd like to think it was our effort that forced Wal-Mart and others to lower their prices to compete, but that's probably not the case. =) Our job at ecoLightbulb of providing CFLs affordably has been addressed by bigger retailers though, so we can start shutting down ecoLightbulbs to move to other endeavors.
I'm very proud of the achievements ecoLightbulbs was able to make over the past two years. We've sold 12,255 CFLs and over their lifetime these bulbs will remove 8MM lbs of CO2 from the atmosphere and save $750,000 in electricity bills.
We will continue to run the site until our remaining inventory is sold. I've lowered prices on our remaining bulbs, selling them at a loss, to help them sell faster.
Finally, I'd like to extend a sincere thanks to everyone who purchased bulbs from us, as well as friends and family that supported our efforts.
--Wayne
Over the past two years, the price of CFLs has dropped dramatically as major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, and others all started heavily promoting these type of light bulbs. The New York Times wrote a great article about how Wal-Mart was helping to drive CFL usage and set a goal of selling 100 million CFLs in 2008. In 2009, through the effort of these companies the prices of CFLs has reached a point where they are comparable to ecoLightbulbs.
Today, 2/21/2009, the price for a 6 pack of 23W CFL from Walmart.com is $19.32 or $3.22/bulb. At ecoLightbulbs our price is $3.09, which is marked up 25% from the $2.49 we buy the bulbs from our manufacturer. The markup is mostly there to cover shipping costs as overall we break even. The difference of 13 cents is not enough to justify continuing to run ecoLightbulbs. Big retailers sell hundreds of millions of CFLs a year, so they probably buy the bulbs at a fraction of our cost. So they can sell at ~$3.00 per bulb and make a profit. On the other hand, at ecoLightbulbs, we've put together a scrappy team of volunteers to run our business and our cost structure barely allows us to break even at ~$3.00 per bulb. This just shows the power of big business when it puts its mind to solving a problem.
I'd like to think it was our effort that forced Wal-Mart and others to lower their prices to compete, but that's probably not the case. =) Our job at ecoLightbulb of providing CFLs affordably has been addressed by bigger retailers though, so we can start shutting down ecoLightbulbs to move to other endeavors.
I'm very proud of the achievements ecoLightbulbs was able to make over the past two years. We've sold 12,255 CFLs and over their lifetime these bulbs will remove 8MM lbs of CO2 from the atmosphere and save $750,000 in electricity bills.
We will continue to run the site until our remaining inventory is sold. I've lowered prices on our remaining bulbs, selling them at a loss, to help them sell faster.
Finally, I'd like to extend a sincere thanks to everyone who purchased bulbs from us, as well as friends and family that supported our efforts.
--Wayne
posted by Wayne at
7:28 PM
1 Comments:
You may want to re-focus on LED light bulbs -my unerstanding is they are more efficient than CFL and last longer (the new frontier).
By
Ed, At
December 7, 2009 8:13 PM
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