DI*STAR QUALITY STATEMENT

A lot of questions and concerns have been raised about product quality in the past few years with the proliferation of imported goods. This situation is especially prevalent in the replacement lamp industry as lighting products from the Orient are being imported into the United States at a fevered pitch.

It seems like every time we open the mail now, there is a flyer from another new company who is offering imported lamps at sometimes ridiculously cheap prices. As business professionals, the hard part now is trying to separate fact from fiction, and making sure we are purchasing lighting products with acceptable quality standards.

The reason we have produced this quality statement is to give purchasing agents and consumers in the lighting industry some basic information about our Di*Star brand lamps. Hopefully, this will better inform consumers about some of the facts and fallacies about imported lamp types, which have become so popular in our industry.

The first thing we must realize is that the quality of imported lamps can vary greatly from one manufacturer to another. The quality of raw materials and equipment used in the manufacturing process are extremely important in the quality of the finished goods.

Many companies promote their imported lamp products to be as good or better than major brand products from Osram/Sylvania, Philips, or GE. These claims are absolutely not true. The quality of the raw materials used by these companies are just plain better, and thus more expensive. And while imported lamps do not offer the same quality as the major brand lamps do, there is a select group of imported lamp manufacturers who do offer a very good quality product.

This market niche creates an opportunity for consumers who are looking for a very good quality lighting product at an extremely affordable price. At Di*Star, we have a controlling interest in all of the manufacturing facilities that we use, so we are able to keep a fairly tight control of product quality throughout all of our product lines.