Their latest offering of drones, media centres and in car dash cameras is a far cry from those early days flogging floppy DISCS.
“Back then everything was copied to a floppy disc, it was a big market” said Laser CEO Chris Lau.
“We migrated into selling branded products for Imation, Verbatim and Kodak we even set up our own factory in China”.
An Australian Company Laser is today a major supplier of both Laser branded products as well as house branded products sourced for mass retailers.
The unlock to Lasers success according to Lau is that they are an Australian Company who is able to source and supply affordable technology that is fully certified.
“Certification is a major issue today, when factories in China have been caught out with components that don’t comply and there is a lot of them, they simply want to give you a discount off your next order as opposed to fixing the non-compliant product”. Said Lau.
“We have been sourcing and supplying products for 28 years so we know the pitfalls. If a consumer has a problem with a laser product they can simply visit one of our offices, we give them a cup of tea and we switch the product over or fix the problem”.
“We first moved into selling accessories back in 2000 off the back of a boom in PC sales we sold keyboards and mice up against the likes of Logitech we then moved into connectivity accessories said Lau a former senior executive at Panasonic Australia.
During his time at Panasonic Lau was responsible for the launch of Panasonic plasma TV’s, projectors and Panasonic Tough Books as well as several communication products into the B2B and consumer markets.
“The bottom line for Laser is that we get in and out of products that make money. We have to get in early and get out before the value of being in a category or product wanes” said Lau.
Among their latest offering is a 4K Media Centre that plays Netflix, a budget drone and a new All Play wireless sound system that looks and sounds like a top end Sonos system but is half the price of the market leader.
He said that GPS and related products was a “hugely profitable” category for Laser. “We got in early and then the market just died overnight, we could have kept doing GPS products but it was not profitable so we got out.
“Being #1 in DVD or Blu ray players means nothing if you are not making money, GFK data is meaningless, we have been #1 in categories but as soon as we cannot make money we get out. All of our staff are motivated on profitability not volume.” Lau added.
A big new opportunity for Laser is the commercial market.
According to Lau several Government organisations such as Ambulance services and Police forces have approach Laser to supply product such as top end dash cameras.
“These organisations want us to not only source product but supply and fit the products across their fleets of vehicles which in some cases is thousands of vehicles. We are currently talking to several transport and services Companies”.
“This is a highly profitable growth market for Laser and we are now ramping up staff levels to service these markets” Lau said.
Going forward Lau sees Action Technology, Fitness and Health as growth categories.
He also believes that affordable well-built technology products are a growth business for retailers especially those that want to use the services of Laser to handle house branding and certification.
“Big retailers trust us, we have been around a long time, we also have the trusted suppliers and retailers want assurances that certification issues are not going to end up in a recall. We believe that the house brand market will grow as consumers get use to using house brand products that deliver value and don’t break down. This is what we are good at” Lau concluded.
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