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 has been 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 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 favored 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 a new Rolls Royce for towards same price, the choice, for many, is imperative!
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 several years been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors given that the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal aim of this was extremely 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 cost of switching the main focus of door retailing to a composite doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of rivalry was announced were offering. Moving to the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but fee of this program of outfitting a showroom was prohibitive. 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 them to the analyze.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There seemed to be little distinction 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 note that with the introduction 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 everything they were going total to help us to sell many. The lack of advertising 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 luster. 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 allow us to 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 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 especially if they not share as start-up cost?
There were half-dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ while on the cost of product samples or just before proving samples regarding charge. Two companies totally outshined others and my Devon-based door supplier has signed up with both of them:
Door-Stop International, tipped by a lot of to get to be the market leader in the longer term had obviously done their homework and also cutting-edge technology such as an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as a marketing tool. This blog has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to find the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the web site shows the finished design and price instantly, even including net ordering center.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279