Internal Doors: Preparing for the winter Season
Many home improvement companies have been slow products and are any change in suppliers as the industry has slowed during the recent recession. Afraid to rock the boat, retailers doors 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 to be a prime example.
Composite doors are recognised as being superior to plain 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 as well as that when faced along with a choice of a new family saloon or a new Rolls Royce for inside same price, the choice, for many, is beckoning!
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 house improvement company in Devon that has for decades 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 basis for this was numerous that the pros 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 price switching the main focus of door retailing to a composite doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of rivalry were offering. Moving to the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but the cost of outfitting a showroom was beyond reach. So the first thing we did would have been to get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then put both of them to the test.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There seemed to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as each and every those approached had many years experience within the home improvements market and recognised the need for credit facilities, keen prices and fast turnaround. Not to bring up that with enhancing British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely similar.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going total to help us to sell items. 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 light. 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 allow us to 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 might cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when we were going to be ordering from the same suppliers for years, so why should they not share within start-up cost?
There were six companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ while on the cost of product samples or just proving samples regarding charge. Two companies totally outshined the rest and my Devon-based door supplier has signed up with both of them:
Door-Stop International, tipped by a lot of to become the market leader in the near future 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 a marketing tool. This amazing site has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to discover style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the web site 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
