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 is 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 favored 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 a meaningful Rolls Royce for towards 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 we was delighted to answer the call for a home improvement company in Devon that has for decades been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors being the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal reason for this was males that the big boys in the renovating 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 the competition were offering. Getting into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but you won’t of outfitting a showroom was high. So the first thing we did was to get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then placed both of them to the evaluate.
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 knowledge in the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to note that with the introduction 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 everything they were going test and do to help us to sell goods. The lack of selling 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 lengthy investment for market share 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 ended up being see which door manufacturers would help 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 it 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 especially if they not share on the inside start-up cost?
There were half a dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on the cost of product samples or through proving samples associated with 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 near future had obviously done their homework as well as supply cutting-edge technology such being an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as promoting tool. This website 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 gym.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279