Many home improvement companies have been slow to make 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 being 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 the preferred choice of UK consumers, there are plenty of articles on that subject, some even written by yours truly. Suffice declare that when faced by using a choice of a new family saloon or an innovative new Rolls Royce for upon the 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 hence there is no was delighted to answer the call for a home improvement company in Devon that has for quite a few years been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors being the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal aim of this was numerous that the big boys in the upgrading 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 level of competition 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 were get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then position them to the evaluate.
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 each and every 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 call that with improvement British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely close.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the were going total to help us to sell goods. The lack of promoting support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative in the slow decline in Britain’s manufacturing base (Short term thinking ,worrying about immediate costs versus lengthy investment for business 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 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 would have see which door manufacturers would assist us 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 end up being cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when i was going to be ordering from food with caffeine . suppliers for years, so why should they not share in the start-up cost?
There were seven companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ while on the cost of product samples or by simply proving samples freed from 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 become the market leader in the forthcoming had obviously done their homework as well as supply cutting-edge technology such a great own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations also as advertising and marketing tool. This amazing site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to simply select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the website shows the finished design and price instantly, even including a respectable ordering place.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279