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 side and windows have chosen to weather the storm by trying to expenses rather than investigate new solutions. The market has been evolving though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing as a prime example.
Composite doors are recognised as being superior to straightforward 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 to say that when faced using a choice of a new family saloon or some sort 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 hence there is no was delighted to answer the call for a real estate improvement company in Devon that has for years and years been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors given that the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal aim of this was the fact that the professionals 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 price 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 fee of this program 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 position them to the quality.
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 each and every 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 call that with improvement British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely close.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the money they were going to achieve to help us to sell many. The lack of advertising 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 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 focus 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 was to 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 would cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we had been going to be ordering from the same suppliers for years, so why when they not share in the start-up cost?
There were half a dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ within the cost of product samples or bring down proving samples involving 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 get to be the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework and erect cutting-edge technology such being an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as marketing and advertising tool. This website has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and many of the shows the finished design and price instantly, even including the web ordering place.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279