Many home improvement companies have been slow products and are 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 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 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 as well as that when faced using a choice of a new family saloon or an innovative new Rolls Royce for about 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 we was delighted to answer the call for a home improvement company in Devon that has for decades 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 reason for this was the fact that the professionals in the homeimprovements 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 declared were offering. Getting into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but kitchens . of outfitting a showroom was too high. So the first thing we did was to get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then position them to the test.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There seemed to be little distinction 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 call that with improvement 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 money they were going test and do to help us to sell their products. The lack of marketing 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 running investment for business 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 be to see which door manufacturers would allow us to 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 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 if and when they not share within start-up cost?
There were some companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ over the cost of product samples or through proving samples free of 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 to end up being the market leader in one’s destiny had obviously done their homework and deliver cutting-edge technology such with regard to own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as advertising and marketing tool. This blog has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to find the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the web site 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