Many home improvement companies have been slow supplementations any change in suppliers as the industry has slowed during the recent recession. Afraid to rock the boat, retailers of doors and windows have chosen to weather the storm by trying to cut costs rather than investigate new solutions. The market is beginning to change though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing as a prime example.
Composite doors are recognised as being superior to standard 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 declare that when faced having a choice of a new family saloon or some sort of Rolls Royce for inside 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 house improvement company in Devon that has for several years been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors just as the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal explanation for this was the fact that the large players in the home improvement industry, the market leaders in fact, had began selling composite doors recently and had positioned these products at 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 rivalry were offering. Moving to the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but the cost 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 put both of them to the quality.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There gave the impression to be little difference between the door manufacturers here as virtually all those approached had many years experience in the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to bring up that with the development of British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely close.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going to achieve to help us to sell goods. The lack of marketing support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative in the slow decline in Britain’s manufacturing base (Short term thinking ,worrying about immediate costs versus long term investment for business has often been the bane of British Industry).
This ‘test’ though allowed certain door manufacturers to shine. The ones that we chose as suppliers were easily recognisable as companies that placed heavy increased exposure of 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 were see which door manufacturers would allow us to stock a showroom with sample products, provide point of sales materials and help us to get the word out locally about the superiority of composite doors over UPVC doors. Our reasoning was that might cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we were going to be ordering from your suppliers for years, so why especially if they not share as start-up cost?
There were half-dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on the cost of product samples or by simply proving samples regarding charge. Two companies totally outshined the rest 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 longer term had obviously done their homework and provide cutting-edge technology such with regard to own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as marketing and advertising tool. This blog has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to find the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and packed with shows the finished design and price instantly, even including world wide web ordering place.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279