R.I.P. April Rain

[Juppe]

Yes, they have decided to finish the rainwear production. The volumes have not left them anything on the last row and their ability to utilize social media and other modern marketing tools has been limited. That's the bad news.

But I have also good news. Some of you may already know the Swedish site www.farmerrain.com They intend to continue with similar models and even add new colours and materials to their program during this spring. So stay tuned, those of you who like the juvenile bibpant models will be served even in future.

The German webshop www.rainwear-shop.com who has been selling AR products to the continent is now selling the few remaining items on discount.

I feel sort of sorry for the incident, it was almost 8 years ago when we started to develop the Funrain product line. Times change and to be able to stay in business you should be alert the whole time, bring new products or even modifications to the market, otherwise you'll have very little options -like AR.

[reversiblepete]

That sucks, I always wanted the blue and yellow jacket that was pictured. Guess I've missed my chance unless anyone knows the model name and it there

To be honest they were not easy to find. They had there own site that disappeared and then I found them after some pretty heavy hunting on rainwearshop. Can't say I'm surprised if they were only selling through one site.

[RainyDee]

It is a shame to hear of a rainwear manufacturer closing down, in my opinion their marketing strategy was to blame, as Pete mentioned in the post above, if you're only selling through one website you can't really expect to continue growth in the marketplace, given the success of other Scandinavian brands I can't help but feel there was a big opportunity missed with April Rain.

[Lordgrey]

Well, Years ago I was told that April Rain no longer exists, but a company called May Rain succeed them. They didn't had such a nice webpage like April Rain, and less english. I think their biggest problem was the english. To reach people on the Net you need good english knowledge or you can't reach broad masses.
However, there is nothing mentioned on their homepage. Where did you get this information?
Maybee you can still order the Jacket you want from them, reversiblepete, if you're fast.

[Juppe]

well, lordgrey, the information is directly from their agent Mr Saukko, who has been taking care of their sales during the years. It's a long story and we - the local rainwear community - have been trying to urge them to get to this century with modern ways of marketing and production. We have been even trying to offer them help but with little success. The original texts on April Rain's website were translated by myself - getting a Funrain set as reward. The Mayrain website was done by their relatives and were heavily criticized by customers. We made a summary on the critics with positive suggestions, but no changes have been made on the website during the passed few years. Mr Saukko has been working for Mayrain on commission and has shared our views.
As a last attempt we visited their workshop in autumn 2011 and hoped to get a change to the situation. As we were not able to generate any response, we knew that it will be the end one day. The married couple were finally the only employees in the company, they were busy enought and they were not interested in doing any developing actions. Nor did the cash flow enable any.
As I mentioned earlier - it is a sad story.

[Lordgrey]

That matches with my impression when I had contact to them. Simo Saukko was my communication partner with them also, and it seemed to me that they didn’t have a real interest in the business, that it was a normal job to them for earning a living, but nothing their heartblood was in. Sad, as up to now, they were the only address to manufacture the Bib'n'braces or Bib pants in adult size, the way they are available for children. Industrial gear is just not the same.

[evad]

Oh, this is such bad news that April Rain/ May Rain closed down... wish now I had ordered things last October! Good find with the Farmer's Rain, Juppe... Now I have to figure out how to read Dutch I guess...