Many home improvement companies have been slow come up with 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 evolving though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing as being a prime example.
Composite doors are recognised as being superior to plain 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 along with a choice of a new family saloon or some sort of Rolls Royce for inside same price, the choice, for many, is irresistible!
Anyway, I’m well known locally for my marketing experience, in particular assisting new business start-ups . i was delighted to answer the call for an apartment improvement company in Devon that has for quite a few years been retailing UPVC doors and windows. 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 numerous that the professionals in the redecorating 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 the competition were offering. Entering into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but fee of this program of outfitting a showroom was too high. So the first thing we did was 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 appeared to be little difference between the door manufacturers here as all of 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 note that with the development of British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely common.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going to achieve to help us to sell many. The lack of promoting 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 overall investment for business has often been the bane of British Industry).
This ‘test’ though allowed certain door manufacturers to shimmer. The ones that we chose as suppliers were easily recognisable as companies that placed heavy focus 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 be to see which door manufacturers would assist us to stock a showroom with sample products, provide reason for sales materials and help us to get 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 we were going to be ordering from the same suppliers for years, so why whenever they not share as start-up cost?
There were six companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on your cost of product samples or just before proving samples freed from 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 become the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework and also cutting-edge technology such the own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations also as advertising and marketing tool. Neutral has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to pick the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the web site shows the finished design and price instantly, even including the web ordering facility.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279