Good to keep wondering Lantern.
There is soooo much more evidence to make one wonder. Here is some heads-up research by swordfish done on sales frequencies by BIEL's competition in CVS stores in CA recently.
I am left wondering 2 things. Did the BIEL CEO have this sophistication level of research before he imploded the deal with CVS to go chain wide? And, how could he be so incredibly inept as to say no to CVS? We have the numbers from CVS of what CVS/Protex offered and BIEL agreed to, before Whelan killed the deal - if shareholders knew the numbers and the reasoning given to CVS as to why Whelan said no, they would be apoplectic.
After reviewing the research by swordfish below, my personal conclusion is CVS had done the research too ActiPatch would have been a huge winner. Also, had the BIEL CEO, who declared to several people 3 months ago that he wants to retire not bungled the CVS deal with the same level of ineptness as Dr. Scholl's and KT Tape and just overcome his Founder's Syndrome, well, you form your own opinion, without any hype, hope or dreams.
Researching the Competition:
Since we had a system, Brickseek, for tracking CVS products I decided to see how well the competitors to ActiPatch were doing.
Icy Hot Lidocaine Patch - $11.49 - SKU 853333
Icy Hot Smart ReliefTENS - $42.49 - SKU 961282
Omron E-therapy MaxTENS - $72.99 - SKU 962890
Omron E-therapy Pn RelTENS - $46.29 - SKU 906989
CVS Mini TENS - $30.49 - SKU 456218
I tracked the sales from 6/3 - 6/12 in 16 CVS stores in Southern California. This gives us a look at these 5 products over 9 days in 16 stores or 144 Store Days of sales.
The best seller was the lowest priced product, the Icy Hot Patch. It sold 9 units total, so if you divide 144 by 9 it took an average of 16 Store Days to sell each Patch.
Icy Hot does a lot of advertising so I was surprised at this modest sales number.
Second place went to the Omron $46 TENS unit which sold 6 units. 144 Store Days divided by 6 equals 24 Store Days per unit.
Third place went to the Omron $72 TENS product which sold 3 units. 144 Store Days divided by 3 equals 48 Store Days per unit.
I don't ever recall seeing an Omron ad but they have been around for 40 years and have a good reputation via their Home Blood Pressure products. They have sold over 200 million of them world wide.
The CVS Mini TENS sold 2 units and the Icy Hot Smart Relief sold 1 unit.
IMO this sales data is good news for the ActiPatch. People are not thrilled with TENS pain relief and the door is open for a new drug free pain relief device.
Lidocaine Patches, while not ingested are still drug based pain relief with the following possible side effects:
Asthenia, confusion, disorientation, dizziness, headache, hyperesthesia, hypoesthesia, lightheadedness, metallic taste, nausea, nervousness, pain exacerbated, paresthesia, somnolence, taste alteration, vomiting, visual disturbances such as blurred vision, flushing, tinnitus, and tremor.END OF RESEARCH
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