The New Necessities

The U.S. appliance industry nearly outwitted itself a few years back: it so successfully stocked the American home with its basic wares that it faced a vir tually saturated market. It is no longer worried. Appliance makers have opened a new future for themselves with a generation of small appliances that perform tasks most people have been doing by muscle power: electric toothbrushes, shoe polishers, slicing knives, hairbrushes, drink mixers. Sales of small appliances have been rising 18 times faster than those of major appliances, and 250 companies are competing for an anticipated $1.5 billion in sales this year. Last week Chicago's Sunbeam Corp., one of the largest U.S. makers of small appliances, showed how strong the trend has become by announcing record quarterly sales of $44 million and plans to build its third new plant this year.

Clutter of Gimmicks. Sunbeam and its competitors do much of this business in products that were unknown five years ago. Growing affluence and the trend to easier living have stimulated demand for almost everything electric, from cradle rockers to foot warmers. Small appliances also sell well because, unlike a refrigerator or a dishwasher, most are in the $25-and-under price range and are often bought on impulse. The market is still cluttered with many gimmicks (electric whisk brooms and wastepaper baskets), but it has also made many onetime luxuries commonplace. Sales of ice crushers and combination electric knife sharpener-can openers are rising steadily; New York's Norjac Co. has done so well with its electric bread and plate warmers that it has just introduced a $12.95 electric sweater dryer. Dominion has brought out a manicure set and Osrow a refrigerator defroster. The housewife can also get small appliances to buff floors, mash potatoes, peel carrots, and warm her towels. The greatest successes have been the electric toothbrushes and slicing knives. Like many other of the new appliances, the toothbrush was first dismissed as a gimmick when Olin Mathieson's Squibb Division introduced it in 1960. It has become such a big seller--sales this year will reach 5,000,000--that 34 other companies have rushed to turn it out. When General Electric introduced its slicing knife nearly three years ago, retailers scoffed; today 32 companies market 103 models, and the total number of electric knives sold is expected to rise to 5,000,000 this year from 1964's 2,500,000. One Clean Shirt. After an introductory deluge marked by very high sales, small appliances usually level off onto a steady market. The electric hair dryer hit a 9,700,000 peak in 1963, has now settled down to 5,000,000 yearly. To compensate for this leveling-off process, small-appliance makers compete fiercely with one another to bring out new products and improvements. This year half a dozen companies are introducing "salon-type" hair dryers on floor stands, Teflon is being used to coat just about everything from irons to coffee pots, and the long-established blender market has come alive again with the introduction of improved models by Waring, Oster, Ronson and Dormeyer. Miniature washers and dryers that take one shirt or pair of socks at a time, have also appeared; Ronson now makes 25% of its sales in labor-saving devices. As competition in the small-appliance market increases, prices are coming down. General Electric recently reduced the price of its most popular electric knife from $22.95 to $18.98 (discount houses have cut it even further, to $12.44), and Du Pont has come out with a toothbrush for $9.95.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.