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 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 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 the preferred choice of UK consumers, there are plenty of articles on that subject, some even written by yours truly. Suffice declare that when faced by using a choice of a new family saloon or some sort of Rolls Royce for towards same price, the choice, for many, is imperative!
Anyway, I’m well known locally for my marketing experience, in particular assisting new business start-ups hence there is no was delighted to answer the call for your house improvement company in Devon that has for years and 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 aim of 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 cost of 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. Getting 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 placed both of them to the push.
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 virtually all 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 improvement 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 actual were going test and do to help us to sell some. 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 running 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 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 allow 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 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 if and when they not share in the 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 through proving samples freed from charge. Two companies totally outshined away from the conversations and my Devon-based door supplier has signed up with both of them:
Door-Stop International, tipped by many to become the market leader in the longer term had obviously done their homework and deliver cutting-edge technology such the own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations also as a marketing tool. Our site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to simply select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the internet site shows the finished design and price instantly, even including net ordering place.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279