BLT - Blis Technologies

[blissfool]

Also, a drop in retail price doesn't constitute a drop in the price BLIS receives for its ingredient sales. Each bottle contains 20% more product => 20% boost in revenue for BLIS! A drop in Imagenetix's margin isn't a drop in BLIS' margin.

While I like your thinking mr needs, I would imagine that both parties have taken a hit on there Margin to increase revenue, trade is still differcult around the world and most retailers are endevouring to preserve more profit out of every sale and pushing back on their suppliers to get better costing. If sales are tough you need to grow your margin to pay the bills. Sorry I remain pessamistic on this.

[emearg]

While I like your thinking mr needs, I would imagine that both parties have taken a hit on there Margin to increase revenue, trade is still differcult around the world and most retailers are endevouring to preserve more profit out of every sale and pushing back on their suppliers to get better costing. If sales are tough you need to grow your margin to pay the bills. Sorry I remain pessamistic on this.

An interesting point blissfool. Two things to remember here:

1) Frutatrom is the supplier of ingredient to Imagenetix so the pricing relationship is between those two parties and not Blis so while it is possible that Frutatrom may have reduced their margin that doesn't mean that Blis has. It doesn't mean they haven't either!

2) The cost of including K12 in a product is only a few cents. We did have figures at some point but I forget exactly what they are. So it seems unlikely that just because Imagenetix have reduced their retail price that this will effect Frutatroms take, or Blis's.

To me it seems more likely that Imagenetix have compared their product pricing with competitors and seen that they were pretty expensive in comparision. I buy a 50 lozenge product with zinc and vitamin C and it costs $7.79 US. That is still better value than Imagenetixs new offering, but not by quite so much...

The other thing to keep in mind is that there is also a retailer in the mix. Their cut may have changed with the new lower price.

Oh, the other thing is that the Blis financials show their bacteria are high margin so they could take a hit on the margin if that was offset by higher volumes and Blis would still be better off.

[simla]

Here's outside evidence of Riteaid selling Bioguard. This page http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthr...d=0&p=32649081 says it is for Riteaid for October.

This seems to be a scan of a printed flyer for October 2010. On page 3 it shows a rebate of $6.99 for Bioguard, only in the week starting Oct 17, 2010, maximum one packet. The packet seems to be 30 tablets. Actual price not specified. http://a.slickdeals.net/attachment.p...3&d=1284928754 If you have difficulty clicking on that, go through the page above.

So it will have a bit of a push at Riteaid for the start of the cough and cold season. I don't know why everybody's getting so gloomy when things seem to be unfolding about as well as we might hope.

[simla]

Actually, it's more interesting than that. If you look at page 3 more carefully, it says "FEEL BETTER FOR FREE!* *Plus applicable sales tax". The page has a big title, "Cough and Cold Freebates." And under the Bioguard bit it says, "Purchase Price Will Be Refunded (up to $6.99). Sales tax excluded." Page 2 seems to be freebates for the first week, and page 3 freebates for the second week - just 12 different products each week.

Which appears to tell us two things. The likely price is seemingly $6.99 for a packet of 30, which might attract some customers. And the trial offer in that week in October is seemingly : free for the first one! Which might attract a few customers too. They have to mail in for the rebate though.

That's a bold move, if I've read that right: an attractively low sales price for 30 tablets, and a give-away promotion. I may not have read it right though, as I'm not part of that culture. And assuming the scanned document really is of something that will be sent out.

[emearg]

Which appears to tell us two things. The likely price is seemingly $6.99 for a packet of 30, which might attract some customers. And the trial offer in that week in October is seemingly : free for the first one! Which might attract a few customers too. They have to mail in for the rebate though..

Free apart from sales tax. Good to see what could be seen as a decent push for a new product at RiteAid. And of course Blis will get revenue for the product even if it eats into RiteAid and Imagenetix's marketing budgets. Maybe not full revenue, but certainly some!

[emearg]

I don't know why everybody's getting so gloomy when things seem to be unfolding about as well as we might hope.

Considering things are getting better and better for Blis if anybody who currently holds them and is feeling down on their Blis shares now never should have bought them in the first place! Growing sales, shrinking losses, an excellent distributor, good uptake by manufacturers, plenty of potential for bigger things if GRAS/Nestle happen and plenty of cash in the bank paint a much brighter picture than ever before.

If anybody wants to dump their shares off market PM me and I will give be happy to give you a very low price, but at least you won't have to worry about your Blis shares anymore!!

[simla]

Here's a detailed image of the Bioguard version for Riteaid: https://offers.rebateplus.com/images...26/21raOCT.png Bioguard's not on their website yet but is on their rebate page: https://riteaid.rebateplus.com/Rebat...?categories=13

And here's one person's discussion of Riteaid Freebates. Freebates and Rebates are "in your weekly circular (mailed out and in baskets near the front entrance of the stores)." "If you haven’t taken advantage of this program, you really should!" "I find that the RiteAid stores will sell out of these items on the first or second day of the week (their weekly sales begin on Sundays and run through Saturday). They do not stock up a large inventory for these rebate items. The early bird gets the early worm, so I suggest going on Sunday to snag your “free” items." http://frugalfriends.wordpress.com/2...check-rebates/

I don't know how the economics of Freebates work, but obviously it will have been thought through carefully, and others have tried it already. So I presume it works. Clearly there are a lot of rebates advertised in the US, but I sense from the internet that people do love the Freebates quite a bit and look out for them.

I would imagine a fair number of companies would give a lot to be sitting there on Riteaid's promotion sheet like that - one of only a handful of winter items that have headline space on Riteaid's promos for October. Wiki tell us that: Riteaid is a Fortune 500 company; the largest drugstore chain on the East Coast and the third largest drugstore chain in the U.S.; the largest pharmacy chain in California, with more than 600 stores there; had revenue of $26.3 billion in 2009; has 4,780 stores; and employs 109,000 associates.

All up, it looks like they did well getting that placement.

[Klink]

I wonder how Blis is getting on with Nestle http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/bu....html?_r=1&hpw

[weasel]

http://www.orabrush.com/

thoughts? (esp. regarding promotional/advertising aspects)

[simla]

Presumably you mean because it seems to have achieved this through "going viral". http://www.orabrush.com/press/ http://www.orabrush.com/press/story And if this link is correct, then there are certainly interesting ways through this whole social media phenomenon. http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/0...acebook-pages/

Blis are on facebook and twitter and youtube, so I think we can safely assume they are aware of this sort of phenomenon. However, I'm sure marketing departments all over the world are trying to achieve this all the time. It doesn't mean it's easy! How many kids out there are trying to get overnight fame like Justin Bieber did, too? And Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals look pretty easy to do, but nobody else seems to have managed it yet!

Also, the brand implications of things like going viral are not clear yet. Does sudden fame sit well with long term success? I don't think people know that sort of thing yet.

Very interesting though, and I'm sure Orabrush are happy.