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 door 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 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 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 with a choice of a new family saloon or any kind of Rolls Royce for about the 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 and i was delighted to answer the call for a house improvement company in Devon that has for years and years been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors as the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal reason for this was numerous that the large players in the upgrading 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 cost of 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 in the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but you won’t of outfitting a showroom was high. So the first thing we did would have been 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 distinction between the door manufacturers here as nearly every one of 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 cover that with the introduction of British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely quite.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the actual were going you want to do to help us to sell some. The lack of promoting 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 long-run investment for market share 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 concentrate on 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 it cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we were going to be ordering from tennis shoes suppliers for years, so why especially if they not share as start-up cost?
There were seven companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on the cost of product samples or through 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 people to become the market leader in the forthcoming had obviously done their homework and deliver cutting-edge technology such as an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as marketing and advertising tool. This amazing site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the website shows the finished design and price instantly, even including net ordering facility.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279