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Things are tough out there. Very tough. From speaking to people in shops and businesses, from what people are saying on websites and forums, and from what the experts on TV say, trading conditions have got considerably worse.
Customer confidence has all but evaporated now. Minimal bank lending has stopped people’s home improvement projects. Wage freezes and the threat of job losses have helped polarise the ‘saving’ attitude. With people very reluctant to spend money, this is going to renew the pressure felt on the double glazing community during the worst of the recent recession.
My personal feelings are that we are probably due for a big company to go to the wall. The bigger companies tend to have the highest advertising bills, the biggest overheads and the biggest outgoings. Advertising, manufacturing and running costs all have to be paid for. But if there isn’t the levels of demand to make sure these bills are paid, then difficulties will occur. I think that we are due to see a big one go bust.
Just a thought!
Customer confidence has all but evaporated now. Minimal bank lending has stopped people’s home improvement projects. Wage freezes and the threat of job losses have helped polarise the ‘saving’ attitude. With people very reluctant to spend money, this is going to renew the pressure felt on the double glazing community during the worst of the recent recession.
My personal feelings are that we are probably due for a big company to go to the wall. The bigger companies tend to have the highest advertising bills, the biggest overheads and the biggest outgoings. Advertising, manufacturing and running costs all have to be paid for. But if there isn’t the levels of demand to make sure these bills are paid, then difficulties will occur. I think that we are due to see a big one go bust.
Just a thought!
>yes trading times to certain consumers will be difficult. teh over 55 are still spending on home improvements though. im sure one of the nationals may well go the wall, but… then the day after they will be up and running again, continuing the trend of boom bust knock all suppliers. untill this problem area is addressed, the industry will stay over saturated and.. prices will continue to drop, due to these stupid attitude of our system companies !
>DGB – I'm not sure we'll see one of the big nationals go bust, but we'll almost certainly see a lot more smaller firms get hit. In hard times the big guys – no matter what their reputation – have the capital and financial clout to ride out the storm for longer than the smaller guys. And if things get desperate, they have a lot of staff they can cut, and they can apply a LOT of pressure on their profile and glass suppliers. In other words, they can temporarily cut their costs pretty dramatically. Compare that to a small… Read more »
>I heard a rumour today that a very big player in the South West is really struggling. They are being funded by a company in the midlands and it's not looking good, but nobody seems to know the name. So if anyone hears please give me a buzz so we can poach their out of work sales people:0) Sorry all, that was a bit mean!