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 door 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 favored 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 meaningful 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 we was delighted to answer the call for your house improvement company in Devon that has for years and years been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors as the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal explanation for this was numerous that the big boys in the renovating 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 to the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but fee of this program of outfitting a showroom was prohibitive. 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 test.
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 virtually all 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 mention that with the introduction of British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely similar.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going total to help us to sell many. The lack of marketing 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 long term investment for business 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 increased exposure of 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 reason for 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 cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we were going to be ordering from food with caffeine . suppliers for years, so why should 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 bring down proving samples associated with 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 forthcoming 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 also as promoting tool. Our site 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 unit.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279