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Yesterdays two sealed units for £20 is a prime example. Others have told me they would have sold them for at least £60, if not more. So how do we get round this problem?
People have tightened their belts over the past year and a half and so whenever they are looking to purchase, they are looking for the lowest price possible, even if they are going to suffer on quality, and this is especially true in our industry. We are a company that sell a very high quality product, but also have a price tag slightly more than other companies. So the scenario at the moment is when we come up against our competitors they are sweeping their quotes making no profit or commission. The key at this point then is education. In the double glazing industry you get what you pay for. You buy cheap you get cheap. You buy more expensive you get a much better product and customer service. Once this is explained to the customer we usually come out on top. But there is always a small percentage that ignore that advice and go cheap anyway.
But I digress! I think one of the problems we face is the invasion of things like price comparison websites. These teach people to look for the absolute rock bottom price every time. Admittedly I do use them for things like car insurance, but it seems to have a knock on effect when people start looking to purchase anything from car tyres to windows to laptops. Bargaining power and penny pinching is going to hurt some companies who are trying desperately to stay afloat. Especially the businesses that offer the premium product/service in their sector. It is these companies that need to toughen up in my opinion to stop penny pinchers and tyre kickers eating into their much valuable profit margins. If we all start to do this, stop giving it away for nothing like I know some window comanies are doing at the moment, customer’s attitudes may start to change and appreciate a bit more the efforts businesses are making to continue trading.
>Perhaps you need to concentrate on creating "added value" on your products. Like you said, its about education. If the customer can plainly see that buying more expensive products = more life span and all round better then it makes logical sense to purchase the more expensive ones. Comparison sites in my opinion are great tools. Yeah perhaps people always go for the cheapest option, but i didn't. For car insurance i went to the 3rd cheapest because if offered "added value" in the form of extras that were suited for what i wanted. Create something that adds value to… Read more »
>That's exactly what we do. This particular person though was very narrow minded and didn't want to know really!