Brands vs Products

Do you know how often people call products by a alternate brand name?

It’s easily done and nearly everyone is guilty of it. When large businesses become so iconic in their field, their brand name often overtakes the name of the product itself! For example, how often do you say “I need to do the hoovering” when in fact you mean that you “need to do the vacuuming”? Hoover is of course, the brand name, while vacuum is the name of the product. This often happens with “Stannah Stairlifts”.

Thanks to the brilliant marketing over the years of the Stannah stairlifts brand, many people get the Stannah brand mixed up with the product; believing that all lifts on the market are called ‘Stannahs’ when in fact, they’re not.

Did you know that, including Stannah, there are 8 manufacturing companies with bases right here in the UK. The owners of two of these manufacturing companies appeared in the 2019 Sunday Times 1000 Rich List. Here are the most popular manufacturers that you may or may not have heard of:

Access

Access is a subsidiary of the multi-billion Euro ThyssenKrupp group. As a group, they build everything from warships and steel manufacturing, to car parts in many makes including the prestigious Audi and BMW brands. They also manufacture lifts, escalators and of course, stairlifts. You can see the HomeGlide 2022, Flow X, HomeGlide, HomeGlide Extra, and Flow here that they manufacture.

The Flow X, is arguably the most versatile solution as well as being elegantly styled to fit with any home and allows the user to effortlessly glide upstairs. It’s a great solution for curved staircases and even narrow and spiral stairs as it is fitted to the stair treads and not the wall. What makes this model so special is that it is great for both short and tall users with its adjustable seat height, and its patented swivel technology, that turns the chair whilst in travel to negotiate very narrow stairs. It beats other manufacturers particularly on narrow curved stairs where others lifts can’t fit.

You can tailor your stairlift to suit your needs and your curved stairs as it is a made-to-measure solution made just for you. It doesn’t matter how many bends your staircase has, our surveyors will make sure we design a rail that will best fit your stairs and where you’d like to park your stairlift for easy staircase access. These models are the best sellers in our range of products. Our customers love using them and our engineers love fitting and maintaining them.

As a local service branch we supply Access stairlifts, our directors have over 40 years industry experience

Acorn/Brooks

Acorn, Brooks, Bison, Budget and Trade Stairlifts are all companies registered to Acorns’ owner. The company successfully exports worldwide, as well as selling products in the UK through direct sales themselves and their dealer network. You can see their popular Brooks straight model we sell here.

Handicare/Companion

Handicare group took over Minivator and Freelift, they merged the two companies together to form the Handicare we all know today. The Companion brand is the direct sales company owned by Handicare and they have a partnership agreement with Age UK. We sell their range of products including the 1100, 2000 and Van Gogh.

Different types of stairlifts available from Handicare. Handicare 1100 slimline design for other stair users.

Stannah

Stannah stairlifts are incredibly successful and have a strong family business history in lifts dating back to the 1800’s. They sell their brand mainly through their own company but also sell to a small number of dealers in the UK and they export worldwide. They sell new, rental, and reconditioned Stannah stairlifts.

Otolift

Otolift is a manufacturer you might not be familiar with, but they were one of the first companies to develop stair lifts in the 1960’s. Their Oto Two twin tube rail design proved popular and this design concept was later used by Stannah. We supply the Oto Smart Air, Oto Two, and the Oto Air. Otolift only supply through a small select dealer network.

Family Business, options for other stair users, battery powered able to use during a power cut

Platinum

Platinum have been manufacturing for over 20 years in the UK and supply only through a dealer network. Their “Platinum Curve” is popular with clients who require heavy duty use and the “Ultimate” is their newest single tube rail lift, both of which you can buy from our range.

How 1st Choice Stairlifts can help you

We hope that this blog post has made things clearer when it comes to stairlift brands. As we buy stairlifts and stairlift parts from different manufacturers, we have a great range to offer customers, to suit a wide range of stairs and user needs, you can read more about our stairlift prices here. We at 1st Choice Stairlifts are a family run business with almost 20 years experience helping those who require a solution to climbing the stairs. We offer a range of stairlifts, homelifts, platform lifts, and wheelchair lifts.

Call us today

You’re only one step away from transforming your life with a lift. Book a free, no-obligation survey or call us on 01249 814528.

If you’d like to try out our range of lifts, visit our Showroom at:

1st Choice Stairlifts
Porte Marsh Industrial Estate
25 Harris Rd
Calne
SN11 9PT

Call us on 01249 814528 to book a demonstration appointment, where one of our friendly team will be happy to run through our products with you and give you a free test drive.