Internal Doors: Preparing for the winter Season
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 of doors and windows have chosen to weather the storm by trying to cut costs rather than investigate new solutions. The market is evolving though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing being 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 along with a choice of a new family saloon or a meaningful Rolls Royce for on 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 we was delighted to answer the call for your house improvement company in Devon that has for some time been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors as the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal cause this was the fact that the big boys 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 an amalgamated doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of declared were offering. Entering into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but you won’t of outfitting a showroom was too high. 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 put them to the evaluate.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There did actually be little distinction 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 mention that with the development of British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely common.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them the money they were going you want to do to help us to sell some. The lack of promoting 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 overall investment for market share 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 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 help 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 were going to be ordering from food with caffeine . suppliers for years, so why when they not share within 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 by simply proving samples freed from charge. Two companies totally outshined others and my Devon-based door supplier has signed up with both of them:
Door-Stop International, tipped by many people to become the market leader in the forthcoming had obviously done their homework and erect cutting-edge technology such as an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations also as promoting tool. This blog has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to discover style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the website 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
