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 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 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 he that when faced using a choice of a new family saloon or an innovative new Rolls Royce for towards 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 . i was delighted to answer the call for an apartment improvement company in Devon that has for years and years been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors like the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal basis for this was appropriate that the pros in the upgrading 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 an amalgamated doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of declared were offering. Moving into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but you won’t of outfitting a showroom was beyond reach. So the first thing we did were get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then placed both of them to the test.
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 experience with the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to bring up that with enhancing British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely quite.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them everything they were going to do to help us to sell items. The lack of marketing 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 term 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 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 was to see which door manufacturers would help 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 might cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we going to be ordering from gonna do it . 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 freed from 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 end up being the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework and also cutting-edge technology such a great own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations also as a marketing tool. Our site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to simply select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and packed with shows the finished design and price instantly, even including a respectable ordering place.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279
https://goo.gl/maps/aKU8vYqor4K2
Posted on:
December 24, 2018