Earlier today the convergence of the ballast industry and e-commerce hit my inbox.
Note: Unfortunately when I searched Whois.net I mistyped “ballasts” and forgot the “s”. www.ballast.com is owned by Philips Lighting and www.ballasts.com is hosted by www.bluehost.com but the owner of the site has a Privacy Service to hide who they really are. Philips is not associated with ownership of this site but, presumably, is selling products to this company as this company mentions that they resell Philips manufactured ballast. We apologize for the error and have made appropriate edits in the below posting.
The email read:
We wanted to to email you to let you know about Ballasts.com website launch! Ever single ballast on the market, the most competitive pricing, usually ships same day. Give us a call – 800.928.2848 ask for Devon!
Philips Advance – Fulham – Sylvania – Howard – TCP – GE – Universal ETC…
Ballasts.com, a website that offers a huge variety of electronic ballasts as well as magnetic, electromagnetic and other varieties, has just announced the launch of its new site. The user-friendly website features the largest selection of ballasts in the world.
The company that launched Ballasts.com has been in the lighting supply industry for years. By starting the new website, they hope to reach even more customers and make it as easy as possible for people to purchase their top-quality products.
We thought this was interesting as we’ve seen some “product category” named websites decided to investigate, assuming that some distributor had launched the site given that multiple ballast manufacturers (10) were mentioned. The website mentions 3M, Marriott, Holiday Inn, Comfort Suites and Boeing as customers (sounds like national account customers, wonder if they got permission to use company logos on their site).
So, a little digging found:
- The phone number is registered to a company called The Servc Group.
- The Servc Group’s website says they are “part distributor, part construction firm.” The site further says that “The Rep Market is still strong today, however, many 21st century companies have started looking elsewhere for better prices, and for distributors that take a smaller cut. That’s why Servc has taken on the role of both building construction firm and super distributor. The Servc Group has partnered up with many of the most trusted suppliers in the USA…” No manufacturer names are mentioned by the lighting, automation, industrial wiring and electrical infrastructure markets are mentioned (meaning either other manufacturers have set them up as a distributor or are selling direct to them as a contractor.)
Again, we apologize to Philips for the inaccuracy of the original posting and have edited the copy to remove mention of this.
4 Comments
Since Philips owns the domain, they are in control of the content.
The Servc Group has their domain ownership hidden as they use a Domain Privacy Service.
I would have to assume that Philips is testing the waters to learn what they can about selling on the web.
I called Ballast.com this morning and they told me that they are part of a company that has other web sites and that they have warehouses in New Jersey, LA, Miami, Phoenix and Canada.
They say that they can get any product from any manufacturer they show and that they warranty everything.
Interesting to note that there is another company that uses the same phone number as Ballast.com, this other company is ledexitsigns.net. Canlights.net and emergancylighting.net share a phone number with ledexitsigns.net.
In some way all of the above companies are connected.
This is something that needs to looked into further to see who is behind these companies.
Thank you for starting this discussion.
We’ve been following the recent posts regarding a website called ballasts.com and appreciate the recent updates from David Gordon to clear up the misinformation that Philips is somehow associated with this site. For those who have also been following this, and especially for our valued distributor partners, please be assured that Philips Lighting does not own, nor is in any way affiliated with, ballasts.com. The ballasts.com domain is registered by FASTDOMAIN, INC – not by Philips Lighting. Ballasts are an important component of our business and in consideration of the future ways to promote our products and connect with our customers, we registered the ballast.com domain, although we have no plans at present to develop the site. Additionally, Philips has no immediate plans for an online ballasts sales venture.
Thank you for your curiosity we look forward to seeing you at the NAED Eastern!
As a techie I’m surprised Philips didn’t also buy ballasts.com when it was buying ballast.com. Should always buy misspellings of domain name and ones with an “s” at the end if it is a generic site.
I also like their comment about an online sales venture, “no immediate plans”!
If these guys are distributors, are the manufacturers selling direct to them and giving them such special pricing? Or are they doing it for a lower margin? Or perhaps they are buying on the gray market. If they are buying on the gray market, maybe I should be further looking at this as a viable way to buy instead of direct. Rebates are great and I like our rep but
Leave a Reply
Trending Now
Pulse of Switchgear
