Internal Doors: Preparing for the cold winter months 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 has been evolving though, mainly due to quantum leaps in technology, composite door manufacturing as 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 point out that when faced with a choice of a new family saloon or some sort of 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 when compared to was delighted to answer the call for an apartment improvement company in Devon that has for years and years 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 explanation for this was males that the professionals 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 associated with switching the main focus of door retailing to an amalgamated doors range and away from UPVC, which is what all of level of competition were offering. Moving 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 be to get onto Google, find out who the players were in composite door manufacturing and supply and then position them to the quality.
Obviously price and credit facilities were major factors, as was order to delivery turnaround, returns policy and product quality. There perceived to be little distinction between the door manufacturers here as virtually all 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 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 the actual were going you want to do to help us to sell many. The lack of marketing support, knowledge and training was truly shameful, indicative among the slow decline in Britain’s manufacturing base (Short term thinking ,worrying about immediate costs versus long running investment for business 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 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 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 had been going to be ordering from food with caffeine . suppliers for years, so why whenever they not share as start-up cost?
There were half a dozen companies that were willing to help, either by proving a ‘credit’ on your 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 people to become the market leader in the long term had obviously done their homework and provide cutting-edge technology such as an own-brand website which retailers can use for in-home demonstrations as well as a marketing tool. Neutral has a design feature that allows potential purchasers to find the style, colour and furnishings for their ideal door and the internet site shows the finished design and price instantly, even including net ordering unit.
Nick’s Building Supply
11100 Broadway, Crown Point, IN 46307, USA
(219) 663-2279
