Many home improvement companies have been slow products and are 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 changing though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing being 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 favored choice of UK consumers, there are plenty of articles on that subject, some even written by yours truly. Suffice to say that when faced with a choice of a new family saloon or a meaningful 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 we was delighted to answer the call for a house improvement company in Devon that has for decades been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors given that the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal cause this was numerous that the professionals in the homeimprovements 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 associated with 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 fee of this program of outfitting a showroom was high. So the first thing we did ended up get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then put both of them to the test.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There appeared to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as virtually all those approached had many years knowledge in the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to cover that with enhancing British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely similar.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the actual were going to do to help us to sell their products. The lack of selling support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative of the slow decline in Britain’s manufacturing base (Short term thinking ,worrying about immediate costs versus overall investment for business 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 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 would have see which door manufacturers would help us to stock a showroom with sample products, provide point of 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 i was going to be ordering from the same suppliers for years, so why whenever they not share on the inside start-up cost?
There were some companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ while on the cost of product samples or just proving samples associated with 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 one’s destiny had obviously done their homework and also cutting-edge technology such a great own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations also as promoting tool. This website has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and many of the shows the finished design and price instantly, even including net ordering unit.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279