Many home improvement companies have been slow come up with 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 expenses rather than investigate new solutions. The market is changing though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing as a prime example.
Composite doors are recognised as being superior to standard 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 to say that when faced by using a choice of a new family saloon or a meaningful Rolls Royce for upon the same price, the choice, for many, is imperative!
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 your house 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 explanation for this was extremely that the large players 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 associated with 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. Entering 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 was to get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then back up for sale to the push.
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 nearly every one of those approached had many years experience within the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to note that with the introduction of British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely very.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the were going to do to help us to sell goods. The lack of advertising 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 overall 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 have see which door manufacturers would allow us to to stock a showroom with sample products, provide point of sales materials and help us to obtain the word out locally about the superiority of composite doors over UPVC doors. Our reasoning was that always be cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we had been going to be ordering from your suppliers for years, so why especially if they not share the actual world start-up cost?
There were half-dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ over the cost of product samples or just proving samples regarding 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 get to be the market leader in the near future had obviously done their homework and also cutting-edge technology such as an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as promoting tool. Our site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to simply select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the web site shows the finished design and price instantly, even including a respectable ordering unit.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279