Qvc Gives Noxon Some Tool Time Noxon Inc. Tools Are Spring-Loaded.

So far, sales have been anything but.

QVC Inc., the home-shopping network, has offered the small Spokane Valley company an opportunity to end its obscurity.

On June 10, President Emory Clark will enter the network’s mobile studio to pitch a package of five tools that does everything from setting nails to stamping metal.

He will have up to 10 minutes to demonstrate his product by starting nails, setting brads and marking centerpoints without raising a hammer.

The air time was awarded to 20 of Washington’s best-kept secrets, as selected by QVC at a show in Lacey last month, said network spokeswoman Winnie Atterbury.

QVC has been touring the country to identify overlooked, useful products that also capture the spirit of each state.

“We’re looking for products that are really indigenous to the area,” she said from Philadelphia. “The whole program basically is about the state of Washington.”

Noxon will be the only company east of Wenatchee, and one of only three east of the Cascades, featured.

QVC crews will arrive in the state two weeks ahead of the telecast to shoot footage of its scenery and people, Atterbury said.

The travelogue and product promotions will be sandwiched into a three-hour show. Atterbury said no time has been set for the broadcast.

Besides Noxon’s tools, the network selected craft items, regional foods, and technical innovations like virtualreality glasses.

Atterbury said QVC promotes 250 new products each week in 50 million homes connected to cable systems. Perhaps 1 million are tuned in at any one time, she said.

“The exposure that QVC has is incredible,” she said.

Clark said QVC has ordered 1,200 tool sets for sale through the network.

Welcome as those sales will be, he said the more important benefit will be the credibility Noxon gains in the minds of hardware store buyers around the country.

“It’s a hard tool to sell if it’s just sitting on the wall in a package,” Clark said.

After watching the broadcast of Missouri-made products Sunday, Clark said he has begun practicing his sales spiel.

“It’s exciting,” he said. “Several of the products sold out.”

He said the tools are also undergoing the painstaking testing done by Sears before it will accept a product for sale in its stores.

If they qualify, the nation’s secondlargest retailer could provide the sales volume that would enable Patterson Tool & Die, which makes the tools in the same University Road building that houses Noxon, to stabilize production, Clark said.

Patterson owner Bob Warner, Clark and retired businessman Tom Smith own Noxon.

Clark heads off to a True Value trade show this week where he hopes to double to 2,000 the number of stores now selling the tools.

Noxon, he said, is preparing for significant sales growth.

“There are 95 million tool boxes out there,” he noted.