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 to be 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 the preferred choice of UK consumers, there are plenty of articles on that subject, some even written by yours truly. Suffice as well as that when faced along with a choice of a new family saloon or a new Rolls Royce for upon the same price, the choice, for many, is irresistible!
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 a home improvement company in Devon that has for some time been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors being the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal reason for this was the fact that the pros in the redecorating 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 a composite 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 kitchens . of outfitting a showroom was high. 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 put both of them to the quality.
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 experience with the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to bring up that with the development of 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 money they were going you want to do to help us to sell some. The lack of selling support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative with the slow decline in Britain’s manufacturing base (Short term thinking ,worrying about immediate costs versus overall investment for share of the market 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 emphasis 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 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 we were going to be ordering from gonna do it . suppliers for years, so why whenever they not share on the inside start-up cost?
There were seven companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on your cost of product samples or just 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 get to be the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework and also cutting-edge technology such the own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as promoting tool. Neutral has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to find the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the website shows the finished design and price instantly, even including an online ordering gym.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279