One of Rochester's Best Kept Secrets
Thu, Feb 25 2010
WHAM1180 thinks we're one of Rochester's Best Kepts Secrets...
Tags: Rochester Companies, Rochester Business, laptop bags
Reprinted from February 2010 WHAM1180
Skooba Design - Rochester's Best Kept Secret
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In this week's edition of Rochester's Best Kept Secrets, WHAM's Randy Gorbman talks about a company that makes products for the road warrior...
The company is Skooba Design. It was started about a decade ago by Michael Hess, who saw the start of the business as a natural outgrowth of the photographic equipment business his family used to own.
Skooba still makes some camera bags used by professional photographers and others, but a main part of their business is making soft sided, but very rugged bags and cases for laptop computers.
Hess says they aren't your everyday, discount retailer type of product...
"We're not the kind of thing you'd find in a big box retailer for $29.99, it's more heavy on design and features and quality and appeals to more of a high end audience."
Hess says there's a saying he learned a long time ago, when it came to balancing quality against price...
"I'd rather explain the price than apologize for the quality, which an old and wise sales rep once told me when I was a young buyer in a department store."
Hess says Skooba Design aims many of its products toward people who travel a lot for business and need a durable bag to carry their electronics...
"Our core audience for Skooba is the real road warrior, we've gotten more of a college crowd lately with some of the colors and fabrics and other things we've introduced, but our devoted, returning customer for the last 10 years has been the serious traveler."
Skooba Design does most of its manufacturing overseas, but all of its design work and other administrative functions are done at a facility in Chili.
Hess likes the talent pool they have to draw upon in this area...
"We love having RIT as a resource, because they put out some of the best industrial designers in the country and they're 10 minutes away, we do class collaboratives with them, so they're an incredible resource for new talent."
Among the high profile items Skooba is now trying to design a case for is the iPad, that new laptop-looking mobile device from Apple. It's not even on the market yet, and already, Skooba Design has sold bags to waiting customers.
Read the article on WHAM1180
