Its all L E D to me

[paul321]

The Sign Show is coming in December to Atlantic City NJ. I've going there for years. All the propaganda comes out here.

In the past several weeks I have had 5 or 6 LED representatives come to my shop and put on the show. They all tell me how great their products are and how much cheaper they are compared to the others. Now the fun starts for me. Most are orientals who dont know anything but "LED, good, cheap price for you" The quality sucks the lights go dim and you cant find them to tell them anything. Usually I dont give them more than 3 minutes before I lose my temper. The digital displays is a whole other article for later.

How many times do you lose a customer because your prices are higher. You bid out a job using Sloan. GE or a reputable company that stands the test. Or at least guarantees their product. The customer comes back and says "you're to high, I got a price using LED that was alot cheaper. They dont know anything except..L E D Sometimes I can convince them, sometimes not. I usually see them in 6 months wondering why their signs are dimming

Neon will always be around and someone will always be able to fix it. I've repaired neon in signs that are over 70 years old and still working

Any ideas or how others are dealing with this

[Erik Sine]

I feel your pain.

All the customer hears IS LED and when you try to educate your customer they don't seem to grasp differences. I suppose this was the same for me years and years ago when I tried to to educate my customer when I knew who my competition was and who made badly processed neon lamps. I would try and tell them I guaranteed my neon 5-10 years, but all they thought was , neon was neon.

[manuellynch]

Imagine being a GE, Sloan, or Axiom that sells a high quality product and you have to sell against these other companies... It is frustrating

My dad was head of aerodynamics at McDonnell Douglas aircraft for 40+ years - he never cut corners and he can sleep soundly on that... I guess it rubbed off...do the right thing and help your customer by providing them high value

I get calls from China factories every day trying to become manufacturers for us and I have decided to just start responding ridiculously like

1. If you put melamine in powdered milk what do you put in solder?

2. If your products are so cheap can we spend a little extra to pay for a massage for my customers which will be distraught over the poor quality?

3. How many employees in your factory eat dog or tiger penis? -- I actually got an answer on this one once!

If people are treating you with ignorance don't get frustrated - treat them the same way back

Or challenge them and ask.. "so do you find that corkscrew dislocations are a higher yield issue on your LED products or do you find that current crowding causes resistance levels that limit electron hole mobility and thus take your phosphor binders into a glassivation state that internally reflects and shortens lifetime????

Educate by teaching, lead by doing the right thing

I am in Las Vegas today and am going to a meeting by the neon graveyard - great place!

[YYZ]

Speaking of graveyards - is the airplane graveyard in the Mojave north of LA the best one, or are there others? I heard there's a big military one in AZ somewhere...

[Mr. Neon]

The Sign Show is coming in December to Atlantic City NJ. I've going there for years. All the propaganda comes out here.

In the past several weeks I have had 5 or 6 LED representatives come to my shop and put on the show. They all tell me how great their products are and how much cheaper they are compared to the others. Now the fun starts for me. Most are orientals who dont know anything but "LED, good, cheap price for you" The quality sucks the lights go dim and you cant find them to tell them anything. Usually I dont give them more than 3 minutes before I lose my temper. The digital displays is a whole other article for later.

How many times do you lose a customer because your prices are higher. You bid out a job using Sloan. GE or a reputable company that stands the test. Or at least guarantees their product. The customer comes back and says "you're to high, I got a price using LED that was alot cheaper. They dont know anything except..L E D Sometimes I can convince them, sometimes not. I usually see them in 6 months wondering why their signs are dimming

Neon will always be around and someone will always be able to fix it. I've repaired neon in signs that are over 70 years old and still working

Any ideas or how others are dealing with this

I have come across the same thing with reps calling or stopping by daily it seems. Just this week another one of my neon contracts shut down and went all LED. Why? they are getting LED's so cheap now that the price is less than neon per foot on some brands. The quality of signs today is no what it use to be. Now it is how quick and cheap can I get it for. I can only sit and watch how some of these companies who pretend to go "green" with LED's think they are really saving more in the long run. Not that there are not any good LED's out there but just like neon quite a few years ago, when it went "bad" with everyone making it or some yahoo installing it wrong causing all kinds of problems, I see similar things in the future or worse for LED. There are too many "China' companies trying to get all the business in LED's and flooding the market with cheap designs. I kinda call it the "WalMart" mentality. We have already seen problems with a few national companies that switch to LED....some less than 2 years of being lit.

I guess not much can be done until all the "junk" LED's are weeded out over time...Going to leave a bad taste in someones mouth just like Neon did awhile back....