Help us, help you

Digital Lounge
1

@Eric_Inovelli your products have a lot of fans, me included. However, something that came up over on the Hubitat community is killing you guys…Inventory. A few of us are over there pushing your product, and people love the features, customer support, etc. But that same complaint comes up over and over. They can’t get them.

Help us help you. I’m happy to push your product. I think it has a lot to offer, but you’re missing out on sales by not having any in stock.

Just thought I’d pass it along.

1 Like
2

Hey thanks! Yeah, I completely understand and we’ve been battling this for as long as I can remember (staying in stock). It was exacerbated during COVID with the Z-Wave chip shortage, and while we’ve gotten better at not having such long delays between out of stocks, we still run out.

Here’s what it boils down to:

  • Demand has grown exponentially – like, it’s actually crazy – maybe it’s you out there telling everyone lol!
  • Our profits, while healthy, have to cover the following:
    • Inventory for increased demand
    • Staff to accommodate this increased demand
    • R&D for new products (each product is around $100k+ to launch)

So, it’s been a juggling act – what’s my best guess as to what the demand will be to cover the lead times + can our current staff handle the workload + what products can we launch and/or hold?

There are a couple solutions we’ve looked at:

  1. Look at a line of credit from a bank to pay for the extra inventory
  2. Crowdfund new products to take the R&D expense out of the equation (i.e., fund the R&D and then start the product)
  3. Raise VC / Investor funds

Right now, we’re in the mix of #1 and #2. #3 is not out of the question, but it’s just not a path we want to take right now unless we need a huge injection of cash that the bank can’t cover.

Speaking of the bank, we had a year during COVID where our profits were negative and banks unfortunately don’t like that haha. Luckily, that year falls off their analysis once we submit our 2024 tax documents showing our profits. They just couldn’t offer me anything worthwhile this year when I met them but they said if we have a profitable 2024, they could offer us more than enough to cover any sort of inventory purchases. I met with the accountant last week to make sure we submit our taxes as early as possible before the rush.

–

All that to say, I’m feeling optimistic about 2025 and having the extra funds to invest in more inventory to hopefully cover the demand and have more than enough to launch new products above and beyond what is already promised.

But, you all surprise me lol (I’m not complaining btw!)

–

Just for fun, here is what we’re seeing (as of today):

Last 52 Weeks
56% growth YOY

  • 55% growth on our top selling SKU in the Blue Series (the dimmer)
  • Almost $1M in $ sales for the White Series Dimmer

Last 12 Weeks
75% growth YOY

  • 40% growth on the Blue Series Dimmer
  • 318% growth on the White Series Dimmer
  • Blue Series in total is up 27%, Red Series is up 10%, White Series is up 318%

Last 4 Weeks
175% growth YOY

  • 87% growth on the Blue Series Dimmer
  • 23% growth on the Red Series Dimmer
  • 436% growth on the White Series Dimmer
  • Blue Series is up 121%, Red Series is up 54%, White Series is up 500%

What this means is that the lead times are about 12 weeks and in that time, I need to account for at least a 75% increase across the board of our product line. When I say our profit margins are healthy, I do not mean 75% healthy lol. Then you factor in the latest 4 week data and I’m now having to almost triple my inventory purchase if the trend continues.

–

I’m open to ideas as the last thing I want to have happen is people getting frustrated and abandoning the brand because we’re never in stock and I know for a fact that has happened based on the Reddit posts, the Community posts and tickets that come in. I really hope the bank can offer us a solution otherwise, yes, we will have to come up with some creative ways to finance inventory.

11 Likes
3

I just read that thread on Hubitat and decided not to reply because I saw this post and they should just read this thread instead.

My opinion wouldn’t matter too much to most as I have been a fan since the ST community days and would be called a fan boy, lol (you and I chatted a bit for the button controller there).

While I think keeping the status up to date for your projects in their respective threads is good, good status like this needs a solid home / newsletter emailed out to the forum and customers.

4

@Eric_Inovelli thanks for this update, it was really helpful.

As someone who has been watching Inovelli for a long time, and waiting for the right set of white components (on/off, dimmer, button controller with a dimmer) that will let me replace my Insteon installation, I can say that I have held off buying anything in the meantime for other projects because the lack of availability makes me worry that I’m buying into another system that won’t be around very long.

It would be helpful to have an official place on the website that shows a matrix of products and their availability (coarse grained inventory levels 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) and lead times on out of stock items (12 weeks, 3 days, etc), and possibly things like pre-order availability (date when you can pre-order items that are due to be in stock). You get the idea.

Yes, it’s work to do this. Yes, it’s unconventional, but so are you. No, Lutron and Leviton and TP-Link aren’t going to do anything like this, but they don’t need to, they’re already at scale with mature sales channels, and completely different inventory problems.

This kind of information, along with a timestamp (critical) saying when the information was last updated is the kind of thing that lets people know 1) you’re still a viable company (yes I have questioned this myself a few times in the recent past), and 2) provides people the ability to plan bigger projects (hopefully retaining customers).

Excited to see what 2025 brings for you (white button controller please!!!)