A New Niche for an Old Fixture : Entrepreneurs: A Westlake Village businessman hopes that home builders will abandon the time-honored metal medicine chest in favor of his plastic one.
It came to him in a dream. On the ceiling above his bed was the image of an object that would change Bill Aisley’s life: a plastic medicine cabinet.
“I must have been developing it and then the flash occurred when I started to wake up,” Aisley said. “I was in a frenzy trying to get everything documented before I forgot.”
What he scribbled down on that summer night in 1989 has resulted in a plastic home medicine cabinet called Spacecab that holds 40% more toiletries than the regular metal kind found in practically every bathroom in America. Made of molded plastic, the cabinet is rustproof and offers six half-shelves that can be adjusted to make room for both tall and small items.
Aisley’s company is Zaca Inc. of Westlake Village, and he hopes to sell 100,000 cabinets in the first 12 months of operation, bringing in at least $2 million in sales. He concedes that orders for Spacecab have been “pretty small” since delivery started in February, but says inquiries and purchases are starting to pick up.
Most of Zaca’s business is with contract hardware wholesalers, who in turn sell to home builders. Retail cost of the cabinets ranges from $52 to $171 for a double-mirror unit, about 10% to 20% higher than the average metal cabinet, Aisley said. Among the stores selling the cabinet are Warehouse Discount Center in Agoura Hills, Home Design Center in Studio City and Virgil’s Glendale Hardware in Glendale.
Industrial design of the cabinet was done by S. G. Hauser Associates Inc. of Calabasas. Cabinet parts are molded in Los Angeles from a blend of recycled plastic, making the product totally recyclable. The units are assembled by a crew of two that works in the warehouse of Zaca’s headquarters, putting together the simplest cabinet in less than 10 minutes.
The interior--and the outside frame on some models--comes in a variety of colors, including black, almond and the traditional white. There is no magnet fastener; a specially designed hinge allows it to automatically close without a bang.
The plastic medicine cabinet is not new to the industry. American manufacturers started making them a decade ago in response to inexpensive Taiwanese metal products, according to Aisley. However, he believes that those products are inferior to his Spacecab.
“I knew when I developed this plastic product that I’m going to face some objections,” he said.
Gary Bailey, vice president of marketing for Kendura Products in Santa Fe Springs, maker of metal medicine cabinets, said some people continue to have a low opinion of plastic. “Plastic is generally perceived to be cheaper by the public,” said Bailey, who is familiar with Spacecab. “I think it’s too expensive for what it is.”
Aisley first became involved in the medicine cabinet industry as a child, helping out on Saturdays and summers at his father’s metal medicine-cabinet company, Jensen Industries, which was started in downtown Los Angeles in 1948. After earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Cal State Northridge, Aisley worked in management at the family company.
The company was sold in 1985, and he left two years later. He later started a short-lived company that made electronic components for the government. In 1990, he began Zaca, named after his two children, Zachary and Cara.
Aisley said his departure from the traditional metal medicine-cabinet business allowed him to come up with the idea for Spacecab, which has more than 35 patents with others pending.
Amy Winters, owner of Win Supply of Covina, a wholesale home-fixtures company, said she sold Lewis Homes of Upland on the idea of putting the new cabinet in 500 of its new homes near Las Vegas.
However, some home builders that she has approached have decided to go with the traditional metal medicine cabinet.
“They say they can’t afford to put in a better product. They’re concerned about the bottom line,” she said. “That’s not to say it’s not a good product. I believe they will go far.”
At present, Zaca has distribution in the 11 Western states, with plans to set up nationwide and international distribution.
“We have plans of going more retail because we’ve learned the product has incredible pull-through demand,” Aisley said. “We’ve built a better mousetrap. It’s something no one expected.”
