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 beginning to change though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing being 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 point out that when faced along with a choice of a new family saloon or a meaningful Rolls Royce for about the 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 when compared to was delighted to answer the call for a house improvement company in Devon that has for quite a few years been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors just as the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal basis for this was numerous that the pros 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 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. Getting in the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but zox pro training system of outfitting a showroom was prohibitive. 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 placed 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 perceived to be little difference between the door manufacturers here as virtually all those approached had many years knowledge in the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to cover that with the development of British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely similar.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the money they were going total to help us to sell goods. The lack of advertising 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 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 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 it cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when i was going to be ordering from the same suppliers for years, so why when they not share as start-up cost?
There were some companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ over the cost of product samples or through proving samples regarding charge. Two companies totally outshined in conversation with 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 deliver cutting-edge technology such being an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as advertising tool. Our site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to pick the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the internet site 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
https://goo.gl/maps/aKU8vYqor4K2
Posted on:
December 24, 2018