We are a distributor and retailer of assistive technology for people with disabilities. We cover equipment for low vision, blindness, physical disabilities, communication disorders, hearing and dementia.
Our largest market is for low vision and blindness products. These we sell both to individuals and rehabilitation as well as to K-12 and post secondary education markets. Education is our largest single market for these products. We are very well known and respected in this area. Our largest competitor is the CNIB who uses their non-profit status as a selling point as they are not required to charge taxes when they sell products. This gives them a 5%-15% advantage in the eyes of some customers. We can only exempt taxes to individuals where a doctor's letter or a CNIB card is presented. Our advantage is that we are much more responsive and provide a higher level of service, so despite CNIB's tax advantage we out perform them in many markets.
Our largest potential area for growth is in other products for which we are not as well known. We have a huge array of products for physical disabilities, augmentative communication for the non-verbal, hearing products and a small selection of products for dementia support.
Currently we have only two employees focused on sales. One is full-time in our Vancouver office just minding the store. I am the only employee who is in sales full time and I also oversee all other aspects of the business such as day to day accounting and some technical support.
In order to grow we need to hire new staff in BC to focus on our under-represented product lines and an itinerant sales person to cover Alberta and the prairie provinces.
Long term plans include expansion into Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. We do some business in these provinces now but each of these areas have special considerations which make expansion a more expensive proposition. Ontario requires a physical office in order to do business with some of the funding programs. Quebec requires French speaking staff and a considerable amount of localization to make products fully available there. The Maritimes have limited funding and although we do some business there with their department of education other areas would require travelling expenses which might not return on the investment.
Western Canada has great potential for growth and is the next logical step for expansion.
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