Why Does Nikken Discontinue Products?

Right now Nikken seems to be discontinuing just about everything. Why do they discontinue products?

I was just talking to someone who had it in their mind that this is all because Nikken thinks they can somehow make more money by doing this or something. I just don’t think that is the case with Nikken. More often than not, it has to do with controlling the costs (not having to raise prices) and making sure that they have quality products that meet the customers’ needs.

Ok. Disclaimer right here. I am an independent distributor. I don’t work for Nikken and I am not privy to a lot of specific information other than what Nikken shares, which usually isn’t very much. Still, here are some reasons that a product might be discontinued.

New Technology

The best reason to discontinue products is because they become outdated and there is something better. That’s the case with the Aqua Pour gravity water filter that was discontinued last October. There were a lot of other companies making clones that looked the same but didn’t offer all of the benefits. I saw three in the past year – one from China, one from Canada, and I don’t remember where the third one came from.

Nikken launched their new water bottle last summer and the next generation PiMag filtration technology in the bottle filter immediately obsoleted the filtration in the rest of the PiMag products. That gave Nikken the opportunity to redesign the Aqua Pour with the new technology in such a way that they could better protect the product. That gives us the new PiMag Waterfall.

I was told today that the PiMag Deluxe counter top and undercounter filters will be officially discontinued next week, April 19. I hope that there will be new systems coming with the new filtration technology. I don’t know if that is the case yet or not.

This was also the case a couple years ago with the Naturest mattress toppers replacing the older Ultra KenkoPad. It may also be a factor in the KenkoAir Purifier replacing the Air Wellness Power 5 Pro.

Supplier Issues

Issues with suppliers come up a lot, and not just for Nikken. The long johns are one product that I get asked about often, and I think they fall into this category.

Companies cannot always manufacture all of their own products so they enter into a contract with a manufacturer and they have to agree on things like price and size of shipments. When a contract expires they have to go into negotiations again and the supplier may decide they want more money or require larger product runs. When that happens, Nikken has to make a decision whether that makes sense for their business.

Patent Issues

Nikken doesn’t own the patents to all of their products, at least not yet. This is changing. Nikken has had some issues with control of patents in the six years I have been a distributor.

Do you remember the Nikken cookware? It was a set of very nice stainless steel pots and pans that used a AA battery to generate a supply of free elections on the cooking surface to reduce free radicals in cooked food. Unfortunately the plastics in the battery compartment didn’t hold up well. From what I understand, the inventor was working on some improvements and for a variety of reasons, it never came to completion and the pans had to be discontinued.

That’s one of many examples that has helped Nikken to decide to bring all of their patents in-house. That effects a lot of their magnetic products. The Elastomag wraps were the first to go and I am still holding out hope for a replacement for them. The Kenko Mini and Super Mini were discontinued after the new Kenko PowerChip was introduced. Same thing for the Naturest travel pillow.

This process of Nikken owning the patents on all of their products isn’t complete. I will keep the appropriate pages updated as I hear about things being discontinued or new products coming.

Slow Sales

Sometimes items are discontinued because they don’t sell well. If a product doesn’t sell then it doesn’t make sense to have it taking up space in the warehouse that could be filled with items that do sell. Back when I started my distributorship Nikken had a tens unit, the Solitens. It was a class 1 medical device and required a prescription. That may work well for pharmacies but not so well for a wellness-based network marketing company. The Solitens went away.

I don’t know for sure, but that may have been the end of the KenkoWave device and maybe the various iterations of the CardioStrides shoes. That’s just my guess based on the fact that I have never sold them myself.

This kind of thing happens to all companies that sell a product and we always hate it when we find out that something we like is gone. Hopefully, what comes to replace it is better.