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 cut costs rather than investigate new solutions. The market has been evolving though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing being prime example.
Composite doors are recognised as being superior to standard 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 he that when faced using a choice of a new family saloon or any kind of Rolls Royce for towards same price, the choice, for many, is beckoning!
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 your house improvement company in Devon that has for quite a few 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 basis for this was the fact that the big boys 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 an amalgamated doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of level of competition were offering. Moving to the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but the cost of outfitting a showroom was too high. 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 gave the impression to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as each 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 mention that with the creation of British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely quite.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the money they were going to do to help us to sell some. The lack of selling 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 shine. 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 help 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 would 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 should they not share within start-up cost?
There were six companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on your cost of product samples or just before proving samples involving charge. Two companies totally outshined others and my Devon-based door supplier has signed up with both of them:
Door-Stop International, tipped by many to end up being the market leader in one’s destiny had obviously done their homework and deliver cutting-edge technology such with regard to own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as advertising and marketing tool. This blog has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to discover style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and many of the shows the finished design and price instantly, even including the web ordering facility.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279