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 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 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 favored choice of UK consumers, there are plenty of articles on that subject, some even written by yours truly. Suffice point out 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 alluring!
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 some time been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors given that the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal basis for this was numerous that the big boys in the redecorating 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 price switching the main focus of door retailing to a composite doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of declared were offering. Getting 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 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 appeared to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as each one of 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 call that with the development of British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely common.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the money they were going total to help us to sell some. The lack of selling 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 lengthy 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 was to see which door manufacturers would allow us 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 we going to be ordering from the same suppliers for years, so why when they not share as start-up cost?
There were half a dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ within the cost of product samples or bring down proving samples free of charge. Two companies totally outshined in conversation with and my Devon-based door supplier has signed up with both of them:
Door-Stop International, tipped by many people to end up being the market leader in the longer term had obviously done their homework and deliver cutting-edge technology such the own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as advertising and marketing tool. This amazing site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to pick the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the internet site 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