Internal Doors: Preparing for the cold winter months Season
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 doors and windows have chosen to weather the storm by trying to cut costs rather than investigate new solutions. The market is beginning to change though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing being 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 point out that when faced by using a choice of a new family saloon or a meaningful Rolls Royce for about the same price, the choice, for many, is imperative!
Anyway, I’m well known locally for my marketing experience, in particular assisting new business start-ups . i was delighted to answer the call for an apartment improvement company in Devon that has for some time been retailing UPVC windows and doors. They were interested in selling composite doors just as the demand for them amongst local residents was growing quickly.
The principal basis for this was the fact that the big boys in the renovating industry, the market leaders in fact, had began selling composite doors recently and had positioned these products in the top of their price range, reflecting the superiority of composite over UPVC doors.
The first problem was the associated with 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. Moving into the fast growing composite doors market seemed a good move but zox pro training system of outfitting a showroom was beyond reach. So the first thing we did were 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 appeared 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 common.
Where some companies fell down though was when we asked them what they were going to achieve to help us to sell some. The lack of marketing 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 running investment for share of the market 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 increased 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 were 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 might cost several thousand pounds to outfit a new showroom and get initial customers, when i was going to be ordering from tennis shoes suppliers for years, so why when they not share the actual world start-up cost?
There were seven companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ while on the cost of product samples or through proving samples regarding 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 to get to be the market leader in the near future had obviously done their homework and provide cutting-edge technology such a great own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as advertising tool. This blog has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to discover style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the internet site 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
