John Bloom (8 November 1931 – 3 March 2019)[1] was a British entrepreneur, best known for his role in the "Washing Machine Wars" of 1962–64 when he drastically reduced prices by direct sales that cut out the retailers.
His company Rolls Razor made great inroads into the market but several manufacturers obtained injunctions to stop them selling at below the fixed retail price.
Bloom was born John Bloomstein[1] in Hackney in London's East End on 8 November 1931 to Orthodox Jewish parents.
Bloom was initially posted to No.3 Radio School at RAF Compton Bassett near Calne, Wiltshire for training as a signalman.
[3] Bloom was later posted to Bletchley Park and then Bush House in the Aldwych, London, on the grounds that his mother was unwell; she died some years later from a form of multiple sclerosis.
Later, after the washing machine collapse, the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society formed Balkan Holidays with the Bulgarian state-owned tourist organisation.
Bloom had come across as the housewife's friend; a pal of working men; the scourge of the City and enemy of the Establishment and resale price maintenance.
The listing of Rolls Razor on the Stock Exchange made Bloom a millionaire with a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a flat in Park Lane, and he rented the Villa La Fiorentina on Cap Ferrat on The French Riviera as a sales incentive scheme for his top salesmen to visit for holidays.
Later he purchased a 376-ton 150-foot motor yacht Ariane for $1 million,[4] which was sold after the crash to Charles Revson the head of the Revlon Company, and later to Kirk Kerkorian, and finally was owned by Adnan Khashoggi for 20 years.
[4] The Economist said at the time: "As the wreckage is exposed it is easy to forget what a lasting impression Mr. Bloom made on the retailing of household durables in this country.
Before his arrival manufacturers tried to sell at the highest possible prices the appliances they found it most convenient to make, competing mainly on advertising claims of better performance and new technical tricks.
Over a time the consumer gets more performance for his money, at each conventional price level, but what he did not get was a chance to buy a given grade of machine cheaper.
The Financial Times wrote: "If the British economy is not sufficiently competitive, if established industry is too solidly wedded to price maintenance, we need more John Blooms not fewer of them'".
In November 1972 the Anaheim restaurant was featured in Time magazine, which said "Old English fantasy, audience participation and a big helping of unabashed male chauvinism are on the menu".
Time described Bloom as "a fast-talking Englishman", who "had been struck by comic Don Rickles' ability to insult Las Vegas audiences and make them love it", and proclaimed the restaurant a runaway success.
From 1972 to 1978 1520 AD opened in leading hotels in major U.S. cities, but, as Bloom had commented to Time, there was an obvious limit to the amount of return business, and the restaurants ceased operations in 1978.
Bloom left the US and moved to Mallorca in Spain in 1979, where he later opened a piano bar in Plaza Gomilla in the centre of Palma.