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 changing 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 declare that when faced using a choice of a new family saloon or a meaningful Rolls Royce for inside same price, the choice, for many, is irresistible!
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 a home improvement company in Devon that has for several years been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors being the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal aim of this was appropriate that the large players in the upgrading 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 level of competition were offering. Entering into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but zox pro training system of outfitting a showroom was too high. So the first thing we did were get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then back up for sale to the test.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There perceived to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as all of 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 bring up that with the creation of British Standards into the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely very.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them everything they were going to do to help us to sell many. The lack of promoting support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative of the slow decline in Britain’s manufacturing base (Short term thinking ,worrying about immediate costs versus long-run investment for market share has often been the bane of British Industry).
This ‘test’ though allowed certain door manufacturers to come. 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 allow us to stock a showroom with sample products, provide point of sales materials and help us to get the word out locally about the superiority of composite doors over UPVC doors. Our reasoning was that might cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we had been going to be ordering from your suppliers for years, so why should they not share as start-up cost?
There were half-dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on your cost of product samples or just before proving samples associated with 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 longer term had obviously done their homework and provide cutting-edge technology such being an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations also as advertising tool. This website has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to simply select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and packed with shows the finished design and price instantly, even including the web ordering unit.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279