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 doors and windows have chosen to weather the storm by trying to expenses rather than investigate new solutions. The market is beginning to change though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing to be a prime example.
Composite doors are recognised as being superior to straightforward 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 having a choice of a new family saloon or any kind of Rolls Royce for towards 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 when compared to was delighted to answer the call for a home improvement company in Devon that has for quite a few years been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors like the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal cause this was males 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 price 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 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 placed both of them to the analyze.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There did actually be little difference between the door manufacturers here as each and every 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 note 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 what they were going you want to do to help us to sell some. The lack of selling 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 market share has often been the bane of British Industry).
This ‘test’ though allowed certain door manufacturers to shine. The ones that we chose as suppliers were easily recognisable as companies that placed heavy increased exposure of 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 were see which door manufacturers would allow us to stock a showroom with sample products, provide point of 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 i was going to be ordering from the same suppliers for years, so why when they not share the actual world start-up cost?
There were half-dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on the cost of product samples or through proving samples associated with charge. Two companies totally outshined away from the conversations and my Devon-based door supplier has signed up with both of them:
Door-Stop International, tipped by many people to get to be the market leader in the longer term had obviously done their homework and erect cutting-edge technology such the own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as promoting tool. This website has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to simply select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the website shows the finished design and price instantly, even including world wide web ordering facility.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279