Many home improvement companies have been slow generate 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 beginning to change though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing 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 to say that when faced along with a choice of a new family saloon or a meaningful Rolls Royce for upon the same price, the choice, for many, is beckoning!
Anyway, I’m well known locally for my marketing experience, in particular assisting new business start-ups when compared to was delighted to answer the call for a real estate improvement company in Devon that has for quite a few years 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 reason for this was males that the big boys in the home improvement 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 rivalry were offering. Moving into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but the cost 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 position them to the quality.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There perceived to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as all of 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 bring up 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 the actual were going test and do to help us to sell some. The lack of promoting support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative of your 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 light. 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 allow 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 might cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when had been going to be ordering from gonna do it . suppliers for years, so why should they not share on the inside start-up cost?
There were seven companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on the cost of product samples or just 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 end up being the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework as well as supply cutting-edge technology such a great own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as advertising and marketing tool. Our site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to pick the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and many of the shows the finished design and price instantly, even including the web ordering gym.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279