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 cut costs rather than investigate new solutions. The market is changing 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 he that when faced along with a choice of a new family saloon or any kind of Rolls Royce for upon the same price, the choice, for many, is outstanding!
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 a house improvement company in Devon that has for some time 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 reason 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 price switching the main focus of door retailing to a composite doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of declared were offering. Moving into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but you won’t of outfitting a showroom was prohibitive. So the first thing we did ended up get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then put both of them to the evaluate.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There seemed to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as each and every 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 the development of British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely common.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going to do to help us to sell items. The lack of promoting support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative among the slow decline in Britain’s manufacturing base (Short term thinking ,worrying about immediate costs versus long running 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 concentrate 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 ended up being see which door manufacturers would allow us to 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 i was going to be ordering from food with caffeine . suppliers for years, so why especially if they not share the actual world 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 just proving samples free of 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 many people to end up being the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework and deliver cutting-edge technology such a great 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 simply select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and packed with shows the finished design and price instantly, even including an online ordering center.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279