Many home improvement companies have been slow come up with 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 has been evolving though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing as 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 he that when faced with a choice of a new family saloon or an innovative new Rolls Royce for inside 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 . i was delighted to answer the call for a home improvement company in Devon that has for quite a few years been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors like the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal basis for this was appropriate that the large players in the renovating 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 associated with switching the main focus of door retailing to a composite doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of rivalry was announced were offering. Moving into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but the cost 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 analyze.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There seemed to be little difference between the door manufacturers here as each and every 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 note that with the creation of British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely close.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the actual were going to achieve to help us to sell goods. The lack of marketing 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 long-run 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 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 would be to 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 always be cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when i was going to be ordering from your suppliers for years, so why whenever they not share on the inside start-up cost?
There were seven companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on the cost of product samples or bring down proving samples involving charge. Two companies totally outshined the rest 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 near future had obviously done their homework as well as supply cutting-edge technology such the own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as a marketing tool. Our site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to pick the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and packed with shows the finished design and price instantly, even including world wide web ordering place.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279