Gillette And The Safety Razor King C Gillette And The Safety Razor On November 15, 1904, a travelling salesman and would be inventor King C. Gillette registered a patent for a safety ‘razor’. In 1895, after several years of considering and rejecting possible inventions Gillette had a brilliant idea while shaving one morning. He had a sudden flash of inspiration, a razor that would not need stropping to sharpen it with disposable razor blades that were sharpened by the manufacturer and then thrown away when dull. It would also be far safer to use, as opposed to the dangerous straight-edge razor. It took six years for Gillette’s idea of a new type of razor with safe inexpensive and disposable blade to evolve. William Painter, the inventor of the disposable Crown Cork bottle cap assured Gillette that a successful invention was one that was purchased over and over again by satisfied customers Technical experts told Gillette that it would be impossible to produce steel that was hard, thin, and inexpensive enough for commercial development of a disposable razor blade but in 1901, MIT graduate William Nickerson agreed to give it a try. By 1903, Nickerson had succeeded and production of the Gillette ® safety razor and blade began at the Gillette Safety Razor Company in South Boston. Sales grew steadily. During World War I, the U.S. Government issued Gillette safety razors to the entire armed forces. By the end of the war, some 3.5 million razors and 32 million blades were put into military hands, thereby converting an entire nation to the Gillette safety razor. Other firms entered the multi-blade market with their own handles and blades but, no one could produce Gillette handles or blades during the life of the patents. Gillette set a relatively high price for its handle as measured by the price of competing razors and fought to maintain those high prices during the life of the patents. With the expiration of the patents, Gillette no longer had a way to tie the blades to the handles and thus, at least on paper, seemed to have no good way to maintain their dominance of the marketplace. Gillette adopted a new strategy and dropped its handle prices to match those of its multi-blade competitors. Gillette then simultaneously introduced a new patented razor handle that it sold at its traditional high price point. Gillette was now selling a product line, with the old-style Gillette priced to compete at the low-end and the new Gillette occupying the high end. This discouraged new entries into the market at the lower end and cemented the role of Gillette at the top end. Gillette’s pricing strategy for blades was equally ingenious. By 1909, the Gillette list price for a dozen blades was $1 and Gillette maintained that price until 1924. In 1924, Gillette reduced the number of blades from 12 to 10 and maintained the $1.00 list price.
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From these early days Gillette brand continues to be a force and the name remains synonymous with shaving and shaving equipment. Today Gillette is a brand currently used for safety razors, and other personal care products by Procter & Gamble . Based in Boston,Massachusetts. It was one of several brands originally owned by The Gillette Company which was merged into P&G in 2005. The Gillette company slogan is “The Best a Man Can Get“. As a result of the merger with P&G, the Gillette Company no longer exists. Its last day of trading on the New York exchange was September 30, 2005. The merger created the world’s largest personal care and household products company.
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