product market
Echo Expands Product Mix and Relationships
By Glenn Hansen
“ This is a relationship business ,” said Harold Redman , President and CEO of Echo Tools , the night before he and his coworkers introduced 21 new products . For this Media Summit event , Echo invited a few journalists as well as members of its User Advisory Group . Made up of pro landscapers , the UAG is a select group of professionals who use Echo and other tools regularly . They also share stories and info through the Echo- MeansBusiness . com site and their own social media platforms . Through these relationships , Echo is able to reach far more potential customers than it could through its own branded media .
My coworker John Kmitta , editor of Landscape Business and Sportsfield Management , and I attended the event at Echo ’ s Lake Zurich , Ill ., manufacturing plant and U . S . headquarters . We saw the manufacturing and warehouse facilities , spent time with Echo ’ s new products , and sat down with Wayne Thomsen , V . P . of marketing and product management to discuss the current and future state of Echo . We ’ ll start there .
OPE Business : We see the 21 new products Echo is launching but give us an idea of how Echo got to this point . Wayne Thomsen : We ’ ve launched 175 new products since 2017 . We ’ ve been aggressive in new product development . We ’ ve expanded the brand and the core of our portfolio with products including
An Echo factory employee does final assembly on the new battery attachment product at the company ’ s plant in Illinois .
UAG member Elias Baltazar tries
Echo ’ s new battery-powered pruner at the company ’ s Media Summit event in Lake Zurich , Ill .
generators and pressure washers and hand tools . Our goal is to provide a solution for commercial landscapers , and that then extends to residential buyers and users .
OPEB : Where do these users , commercial or residential , find Echo products and service ? What ’ s your relationship with retailers ? Thomsen : We provide our products thru distributor and dealer channels . We have six distributors and we do dealer-direct wholesale in 29 states and work with independent servicing power-equipment dealers . We have a wholly owned subsidiary in Canada .
We are also selling through larger retailers including Home Depot , Fleet Farm , Blaine ’ s , and Tractor Supply . This is an increasing sales line for us and it can provide advantages for users , like longer store hours , more locations , etc . We know the independent dealer has
14 OPE Business October 2023 www . OPEBusiness . com