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 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 to be 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 favored 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 new Rolls Royce for inside 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 quite a few years 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 appropriate that the large players in the home improvement 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 rivalry were offering. Moving into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but fee of this program of outfitting a showroom was high. So the first thing we did ended up get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then position them to the push.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There gave the impression to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as virtually all 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 note that with improvement British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely common.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going test and do to help us to sell their products. The lack of promoting 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 shimmer. The ones that we chose as suppliers were easily recognisable as companies that placed heavy focus 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 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 the same suppliers for years, so why if and when they not share within start-up cost?
There were half a dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on your cost of product samples or just before proving samples involving charge. Two companies totally outshined you need to engage 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 as well as supply cutting-edge technology such as an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as marketing and advertising tool. This blog has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to pick the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the website shows the finished design and price instantly, even including net ordering center.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279