New technologies come to market from a variety of angles these days. What tips a product in the market can often be the story and buzz that brings attention to it. This is exactly what happened when inventor and sage David Allen came to QVC all the way from Blatchly, Oregon. David created the world’s first miniature LED micro light. His Photon class of lightweight, powerful and long lasting personal Light Emitting Diodes were the first portable consumer products using the new LED technology. LED’s were about to be implemented across a wide spectrum of products and China was on the verge of flooding the marketplace. Yet, here in America we scarcely used this new technology.

However, David’s Photon Micro Lights were standard equipment for a different demographic than that which QVC serves. The Photon class of micro lights was being used by law enforcement professionals, military personnel, the U.S. Secret Service and had even made their way onto the Space Station!... it was this very story of quality, usefulness and indispensability by association that we told to QVC customers in the fall of 2005. After five consecutive sellouts and over 50,000 units sold, the QVC vendor community took notice and by the first quarter of 2006, LED enhanced products were all the rage. A new technology had created opportunities across multiple categories at QVC and the mighty little Photon had started it all!

- Jeff