Many home improvement companies have been slow products and are any change in suppliers as the industry has slowed during the recent recession. Afraid to rock the boat, retailers doors 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 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 point out that when faced by using a choice of a new family saloon or a new Rolls Royce for towards 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 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 given that the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal explanation for this was extremely that the big boys in the homeimprovements 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 cost of switching the main focus of door retailing to a composite doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of rivalry 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 would have been to 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 perceived to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as nearly every one of those approached had many years expertise in the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to cover that with enhancing British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely close.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going to achieve to help us to sell many. The lack of marketing 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 light. 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 be to see which door manufacturers would allow us to stock a showroom with sample products, provide reason for sales materials and help us to obtain the word out locally about the superiority of composite doors over UPVC doors. Our reasoning was that it cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we had been going to be ordering from food with caffeine . suppliers for years, so why especially if they not share as 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 associated with 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 people to end up being the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework and provide cutting-edge technology such being an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations also as promoting tool. This amazing site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to find the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the internet site shows the finished design and price instantly, even including world wide web ordering center.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279