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 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 being 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 towards 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 and i was delighted to answer the call for an apartment improvement company in Devon that has for decades been retailing UPVC doors and windows. They were interested in selling composite doors like the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal aim of this was males that the large players in the homeimprovements 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 rivalry were offering. Getting into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but fee of this program 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 position them to the push.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There did actually be little difference between the door manufacturers here as nearly every one of 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 call that with the development of British Standards in the composite manufacturing industry, the manufacturing processes were extremely quite.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going total to help us to sell goods. The lack of marketing support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative with 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 increased exposure of 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 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 had been going to be ordering from tennis shoes 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’ over the cost of product samples or just proving samples involving 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 to get to be the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework as well as supply cutting-edge technology such as an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations too as a marketing tool. Neutral has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to select the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the website shows the finished design and price instantly, even including an online ordering center.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279
