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In September 2020 alone, photography equipment company Westcott sold more than 6,000 ring lights – a 400% percent increase from before the pandemic.
Courtesy of Westcott
When Jimmy Fallon relocated his Tonight Show set from 30 Rock to the Hamptons to continue filming amid Covid-19 restrictions, his team phoned a little-known, Ohio-based company, Westcott. They needed portable, studio-quality lights (called Ice Lights) to up his home-production value—and they needed them fast.
For decades, Westcott has manufactured photography equipment for hobbyists and professionals alike. This past year, Fallon wasn’t the only one taking notice of the company. As offices closed, remote workers took to Zoom and sought out ways of improving their on-screen appearance. With its ring lights and green screens, Wescott was their solution.
Prior to the pandemic, ring lights and green screens made up 1.3% and 2.5% of Westcott sales, according to President Brandon Heiss. Camera flash lights, its newly-launched bestseller, made up 6%. Last spring, all that changed. Heiss says he noticed an unusual uptick in ring light and green screen sales in early April, as companies transitioned to remote work. In May 2020, they made up 15% and 10% of sales—unheard of for a company that makes more than 500 products.
“Through the end of May, those were the only products we were selling. I joke, but those are the products that got us through the worst of Covid,” he says. “Immediately, we called our factories and said, ‘Stop creating anything else except green screens and ring lights. That’s going to be our focus for the foreseeable future.’”
During a 2020 episode of his Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon showed off the lights he purchased from Ohio-based photography company Westcott.
Courtesy of Westcott
From the start of the pandemic to December 2020, ring light and green screen sales increased by 400% and 600%, Heiss says. It was quite the change for a company that got its start selling fashion umbrellas in 1899.
Founded by C.H. Haas, Westcott made the switch from selling fashion umbrellas to golf umbrellas in the 1940s. It wasn’t until Haas’ grandson, Tom Waltz, started working for the company in the 1960s that it started peddling photographic umbrellas and softboxes. Waltz, the current chairman, still owns part of his family’s business (Heiss and CFO Jeff Cohen own the rest).
Waltz says Westcott started developing its ring light product just a year before the pandemic, when an eagle-eyed sales representative noticed a trend of more people working from home. “Thank God we made the decision a year before,” Waltz says. “That really helped us get through a tough time.”
Thanks to these two products, sales at Westcott were up slightly last year from 2019, and though demand has slowed considerably since last year, Heiss says companies announcing permanent remote or hybrid work policies have kept consumer interest steady.
“I think some people will go so far as to buy this stuff for online interviewing because that’s the norm. You used to be worried about, ‘Are my pants and shirts dry cleaned?’ Now you worry about, ‘Does my lighting look good and am I hiding the cluttered mess in my apartment?’” he says, laughing. “Everyone’s trying to look good in front of a prospective employer.”