The word ‘Unlucky’ is generally associated with any Friday 13th but that certainly was not the case for Solar Solve UK on Friday 13th April this year. That was the day the South Shields based manufacturer of the world famous SOLASOLV and ROLASOLV roller screens and blinds dispatched a consignment of 16 Type Approved SOLASAFE solar roller sunscreens to a customer in Uruguay. It was Solar Solve’s first order for the South American country and the 100th country to be supplied with the company’s brand leading products.
Company chairman and business founder John Lightfoot, MBE, is absolutely delighted and said, “Solar Solve Ltd was formed in 1988 out of Northern Window Blind Co. and up to that time we had only supplied windowblinds to customers in England.”
“It has taken 30 years to add the other 99 countries. It’s a long time and the whole of the Solar Solve Team are thrilled that the milestone has now been reached. It’s a significant achievement and one that we are extremely proud of.”
Over the 3 decades there have been one or two unusual and exotic locations included within the 100 countries such as the Falklands Islands, Tahiti, land-locked Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Greenland and the Cayman Islands.
Over the last decade particularly, more use of the World Wide Web and Internet, together with improvements to the company’s website; www.solasolv.com have resulted in a huge change in the way the business now markets its products. Changes that are seeing enquiries from an even wider variety of countries and locations, like land-locked Kyrgyzstan mentioned earlier.
Managing Director Julie Lightfoot, Chairman John’s daughter and also an MBE, added, “In just one day enquiries can come from the Driver of an Excavator working at an open-cast mine location in the Western Australian desert; someone in Alaska who needs Anti-Glare Screens for the windows of an Air Traffic Control Tower; a Roughneck in the drilling control room of an Offshore Rig who is blinded by the sun, the Purchasing Manager of one of the world’s premier Cruise Lines who needs special Type Approved roller blinds for a passenger area of a Cruise Ship or the Captain of an Aircraft Carrier the length of a street, who needs anti-glare screens for the windows of the Navigation Bridge or Flying Control room.”
With all of this going on, the Team at Solar Solve are expecting the rate of new countries traded with to increase quite significantly over the next few years, until they reach saturation point.
The Company Chairman concludes, “Currently there are 195 countries in the world. Obviously we are unlikely to trade with every one of them but with one hundred already achieved, it is going to be interesting to see how many more we can trade with before we get to the realistic maximum.”
“How long it will take is anybody’s guess but we are having a really great time serving our customers and making them very happy and we do make them very happy. There are over 100 Customer Commendations on our website Testimonials page that prove it.”
“Throughout the whole 30 years we have continuously maintained our No.1 position as the Best In The World for the products and service that we supply, in spite of the many imitators that have copied our products and copied or implied our Trade Marks and Brand Names.”
“The world’s Brand Leaders are rarely displaced and SOLASOLV-UK is no exception. We have lots of exciting plans for 2018 and are already well under way with all of the projects and marketing campaigns.”
There is a page on the Solar Solve website that contains information about copy products and why, in our opinion, they are inferior to the real thing, which is only manufactured at Solar Solve Ltd.’s South Shields, UK based facility.
