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 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 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 some sort 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 an apartment 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 basis for this was the fact that the professionals in the home improvement 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 the competition were offering. Getting into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but the cost of outfitting a showroom was prohibitive. 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 expertise in 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 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 among the 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 luster. 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 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 end up being 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 should they not share as start-up cost?
There were six companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on your cost of product samples or bring down proving samples associated with 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 people 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 too as a 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 an online ordering place.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279