Many home improvement companies have been slow to make any change in suppliers as the industry has slowed during the recent recession. Afraid to rock the boat, retailers door and windows have chosen to weather the storm by trying to expenses rather than investigate new solutions. The market is evolving though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing to be a prime example.
Composite doors are recognised as being superior to straightforward UPVC doors and improvements in the manufacturing process have meant that composite doors are now priced around the same as UPVC doors. I won’t go into much detail as to why composite doors are becoming the preferred choice of UK consumers, there are plenty of articles on that subject, some even written by yours truly. Suffice as well as that when faced using a choice of a new family saloon or some sort of Rolls Royce for upon the same price, the choice, for many, is alluring!
Anyway, I’m well known locally for my marketing experience, in particular assisting new business start-ups when compared to was delighted to answer the call for a home improvement company in Devon that has for some time been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors as the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal explanation for this was numerous that the large players in the upgrading industry, the market leaders in fact, had began selling composite doors recently and had positioned these products in the top of their price range, reflecting the superiority of composite over UPVC doors.
The first problem was the price switching the main focus of door retailing to an amalgamated doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of declared were offering. Moving into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but fee of this program of outfitting a showroom was high. So the first thing we did would be to get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then back up for sale to the push.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There did actually be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as virtually all those approached had many years experience within the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to call that with the introduction of British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely quite.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the actual were going to do to help us to sell many. The lack of marketing support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative with the slow decline in Britain’s manufacturing base (Short term thinking ,worrying about immediate costs versus long term investment for share of the market has often been the bane of British Industry).
This ‘test’ though allowed certain door manufacturers to come. The ones that we chose as suppliers were easily recognisable as companies that placed heavy increased customer service and, more importantly recognised that their customer was in fact the retailer, not the end purchaser of a new door.
The simple test we put would have see which door manufacturers would allow us to to stock a showroom with sample products, provide reason for sales materials and help us to obtain the word out locally about the superiority of composite doors over UPVC doors. Our reasoning was that it would cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when had been going to be ordering from tennis shoes suppliers for years, so why should they not share on the inside start-up cost?
There were half a dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on your cost of product samples or just before proving samples associated with charge. Two companies totally outshined away from the conversations and my Devon-based door supplier has signed up with both of them:
Door-Stop International, tipped by many to get to be the market leader in the forthcoming had obviously done their homework and provide cutting-edge technology such as an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as marketing and advertising tool. This blog has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to discover style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the website shows the finished design and price instantly, even including a respectable ordering unit.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279