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 beginning to change though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing being 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 he that when faced using a choice of a new family saloon or a 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 hence there is no was delighted to answer the call for a house improvement company in Devon that has for quite a few 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 numerous 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 cost of switching the main focus of door retailing to a composite doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of level of competition were offering. Getting in 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 were get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then placed both of them to the analyze.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There did actually be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as all of those approached had many years experience 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 actual were going total to help us to sell many. 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 lengthy investment for market share has often been the bane of British Industry).
This ‘test’ though allowed certain door manufacturers to come. 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 ended up being see which door manufacturers would assist 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 it would 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 whenever they not share within start-up cost?
There were six companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ over the cost of product samples or through 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 a lot of to become 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 as well as promoting tool. Our site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to discover style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and many of the shows the finished design and price instantly, even including a respectable ordering center.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279