Battery Station CR123s now Rayovac?

[louie]

I am not affiliated other than a customer, but notice now that Battery Station's own brand CR123s are now advertised as "USA production now underway" - Rayovac being substituted until house label stock is in. I guess this infers that Rayovac will make their house brand 123s now, maybe easing fears about quality that some have. Price is no longer $1, though, it's $1.25 each CPF price.

 

[MorePower]

Rayovac doesn't actually make CR123A cells. They buy them from another manufacturer and simply sell them under the Rayovac brand name.

I think that Battery Station is simply substituting Rayovac cells, which are among the least expensive major brands they carry, until their new supplier of house-brand cells has production up to speed for them.

 

[greenLED]

Rayovac being substituted until house label stock is in. I guess this infers that Rayovac will make their house brand 123s now, maybe easing fears about quality that some have.

(emphasis mine)

It's always interesting to seehow different people can interpret a single sentence differently. I undestand that as saying: "We don't have BS-branded 123's on hand yet, we're offering you Rayovac's instead, at least until our own brand cells are in stock." :shrug:

Good to know Kevin's made the US manufacturing public.

 

[louie]

No argument, as we don't know what's going on and I merely jumped to a plausible conclusion that this -infers- Rayovac OEM. Since BS sells Sanyo($2.75), Duracell ($2.50), Energizer ($2), Rayovac ($2) and Surefire ($1.75), I'm searching for a plausible business reason to not substitute the least expensive USA made name brand until his house stock arrives, if he's going to sell at the $1.25 price. Why not sub Surefires? Or a choice of Energizer or Rayovac? Unless, maybe, there is a large deal with Rayovac that makes them more attractive to sub from a business perspective!

Note on the 123 page there is also a special of 50 Rayovacs for $1.50 each (non-CPF price) and the non-CPF price for BS brand is $1.50!

Who does make 123s in the USA now, Duracell, Panasonic, and Energizer?

 

[dano]

Panasonic's U.S. factory is the only place in the U.S. that OEM's and makes lithium primary cells.

--dan

 

[JohnB]

I was told that Streamlight, Duracell and Rayovac are all made at the same factory with different packaging.

 

[Avatar28]

For what it's worth, I spoke to someone, Kevin maybe, on the phone the other day before ordering. The batteries ARE Rayovacs right now. I couldn't tell you if they are OEM or not, but they look pretty much exactly like the Rayovac alkaline cells you can buy at Wal-mart or where ever. When I asked who was making their new ones (which should be in within the next week or two I believe at this point), he told me they were ALSO being made by Rayovac.

 

[MattK]

No argument, as we don't know what's going on and I merely jumped to a plausible conclusion that this -infers- Rayovac OEM. Since BS sells Sanyo($2.75), Duracell ($2.50), Energizer ($2), Rayovac ($2) and Surefire ($1.75), I'm searching for a plausible business reason to not substitute the least expensive USA made name brand until his house stock arrives, if he's going to sell at the $1.25 price. Why not sub Surefires? Or a choice of Energizer or Rayovac? Unless, maybe, there is a large deal with Rayovac that makes them more attractive to sub from a business perspective!

Note on the 123 page there is also a special of 50 Rayovacs for $1.50 each (non-CPF price) and the non-CPF price for BS brand is $1.50!

Who does make 123s in the USA now, Duracell, Panasonic, and Energizer?

Your assumtion is that the prices he sells at are directly related (via some straight line markup) to his cost which I believe is incorrect. I am pretty damned sure that the Rayovacs cost them (considerably) less than the Surefires and this is why they are being substituted.

 

[paulr]

I think there have been differences in the shootouts even between USA made cells, indicating that they're not all the same. I just bought 10 Streamlight cells for $1.40 each from Lighthound (they have done well in shootouts in the past) and I notice they are marked USA. This seems like a pretty attractive deal. I also bought six Duracells for something like $2.25 each and I plan to use them in more expensive lights (Spy, McLux, etc). I don't expect the Duracells are necessarily better cells, but they are sold as photo batteries rather than flashlight batteries, so Duracell is more used to the idea of replacing multi-$100 devices when something goes wrong with their batteries. Also, as a huge corporation they can write such checks with relative ease, while replacing a $500 light would probably be painful (and therefore lead to more user difficulty) for a small outfit like Battery Station. I figure that extra "insurance" is part of the higher cost of the brand name batteries.