The latest Rhode Island stroller maker says it has its competitors beat in one area today's parents will find crucial: It claims its stroller has "the fastest one-hand fold on the market."
Bombi Gear, started by a trio of consumer products veterans, is selling its stroller, Bēbee, directly to consumers. The company says its stroller is also eco-friendly — the product is made from recycled materials — but multi-tasking parents will likely appreciate that it's lightweight and convenient to use.
“We thought we could do it a bit better,” founder Mike Fusco said in an interview. “A lot of the strollers on the market today are quite cumbersome. You need a degree in engineering to try to figure out how they work.”
Fusco, whose background is toy and juvenile product development, said the idea grew out of frustration with restrictions put on product developers by big retailers, whose process and need for a certain profit margin ended up compromising how good, or at least how user friendly, the products could be.
The resulting project, Bombi, is focused on ease of use for parents, combined with “eco-positioning,” as Fusco called it. The strollers are made of recycled water bottles and the company isn’t using packing materials when it ships.
Bombi is fully self-funded, and Fusco said the demand for its product in the first few weeks scared the founders a little. They've already sold one third of their inventory.
“We severely under forecasted,” he said. “We’re afraid we’re going to run out of inventory in a couple weeks.”
The problem, albeit a good one to have, has been exacerbated by shipping and supply-chain issues as they try to ramp up production at the factory Bombi has contracted with in Northern China.
Social media might have contributed to some of that momentum and demand. An Instagram video of the aforementioned one-handed fold from Sept. 15 racked up nearly 26,000 likes.
“I think people start businesses for lots and lots of reasons,” Fusco said. “The biggest reason is to earn a lot of money. That conversation hasn’t even happened for us. How do we get the best product we can into consumers’ hands that helps their daily routine? Product is king and good product finds a way.”
