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 side 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 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 by using a choice of a new family saloon or a meaningful Rolls Royce for about 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 hence there is no was delighted to answer the call for an apartment improvement company in Devon that has for decades been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors being the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal cause this was extremely that the big boys in the redecorating 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 associated with switching the main focus of door retailing to an amalgamated doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of level of competition were offering. Getting into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but kitchens . of outfitting a showroom was high. So the first thing we did were 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 gave the impression to be little difference between the door manufacturers here as virtually all those approached had many years experience with the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to mention that with improvement British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely very.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them everything they were going to achieve to help us to sell some. 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 lengthy 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 help us 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 end up being 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 if and when they not share on the inside start-up cost?
There were some companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ over the cost of product samples or by simply proving samples involving 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 near future had obviously done their homework and erect cutting-edge technology such the own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as advertising and marketing tool. This blog 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 net ordering gym.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279