This is an image of a before and after door installation done by Direct Doors based in Warrington. They posted this picture on Twitter with this text: Oak upvc back door £380 fitted! Contact us now #warrington #Cheshire, and this is exactly what is wrong with our industry.
£380 for a door is frankly a ridiculous price to be selling a fitted door. At first I thought that this might have been a one-off. Maybe this was a mis-measure that the guy was just using and doing the client a favour. But when I looked back at their Twitter timeline, they had been posting tweets advertising fitted doors from £350.
I think its safe to say the majority of people reading this will agree that £380 for a door is way, WAY, too low. No profit would have been made on this job. No commission. No VAT or any other costs. In fact, that £380 is going to be stretched to pay for the materials alone. If I were selling that door, it would come in around the £1k mark. I sat down and worked out how they could have come to that cost and how they could run their business on those sort of principles – and came up with no reasonable answers, other than he should have studied business at school a bit better.
On a different but unrelated matter, there is a larger trend that has been revealed this week. If you noticed, some of the biggest retailers in the country embarked on some very early and massive discounting campaigns. Whereas some, like Next, held their nerve right until the very end, limiting any sales promotions – the results have been staggering. Next have reported massive profits, way up on previous estimates. In fact they have so much cash they’re having to give away extra dividends as they have no functional use for that money. But other retailers which carried out big discounting have been hit badly, like Debenhams. They have had to issue a profit warning they performed that badly. All retailers who discounted before Christmas have all reported poor profit and sales figures. The lesson here? Discounting never really works, and will cause damage.
The same applies to this industry. At my place we never do discounts or sales. The price is the price, and that way we maintain a healthy profit margin. I can guarantee that in a door priced at £380 there won’t be a single penny profit. Quite frankly, that company should be ashamed and embarrassed that they thought posting such a ridiculous tweet was a good thing. It makes a mockery of our industry which is trying to shake off the cheap and cheerful tag, to try and become somewhat more respected. £380 doors will not make any customer respect them. This is exactly what is wrong with our industry.
All comments on this stupid tweet and stupid price are very much welcome in the section below!
As has been said before ‘Cheap And Miserable’ works better. There is nothing cheerful about cheap!
I agree completely with you. Next are able to maintain their profits because they have built a brand on quality at a value for money price. Their sales only get rid of old lines and sizes. You have work at building a reputation for your company, make sure it’s not for cheap and cheap. Customers will still demand a quality service or you won’t get paid or recommended.
Especially seeing as he has patched in the render as well for that price! I think some people don’t have a clue about marketing so they come up with a stupid deal to make the phone ring rather than building on quality and recommendations.
Coming at this from the perspective of a locksmith commonly dealing with broken multipoint lock mechanisms, I see this type of door every day: they just feels low quality and poorly fitted, with the cheapest possible multipoint lock fitted, £2 lock cylinder, cheap flimsy handles and cheap sloppy hinges.
uPVC doors can be really great quality, but skimming quality off to meet a ‘cheapest’ price point only leaves the customer with an inferior product that is neither secure nor reliable.
Whilst I agree with the thrust of your argument, I do have some sympathy with the position of many small window/door/conservatory businesses. This industry is unusual in that it has developed very few recognisable consumer brands. Most homeowners find product differentiation between our various products almost impossible. So they tend to buy on the basis of the local reputation of their chosen company and price. Good selling can often build the price up a bit but, when you have no branded product to sell, no local reputation to fall back on and limited selling skills, price is all you’re left… Read more »
What is wrong with this industry is some of the dishonest sales tactics and gimmickry.
Bogus discounts and Energy Ratings would be good places to start!
I agree with Anthony Pratt that we all need branded products, (without misleading claims) but why would anyone under sell a product. When you work for a company would you work for no pay ? So why when you start your own business sell items at cost or below, it will not build your brand / business and you will not make any money, so you would have been better stopping in your employed job. Time for the industry to sell not order take and build a brand that adds value to customers home, so the customer wants to buy… Read more »
Anthony Jones – Chairman – National Federation of Glaziers
January 9, 2014 at 9:50 pm
What is wrong with this industry is some of the dishonest sales tactics and gimmickry.
Bogus discounts and Energy Ratings would be good places to start!
Thats about right in my book , to have dishonest sales statements promoted by the GGF/BFRC really doesn’t do anything to promote professionalism in the industry .
So many industries are like this. You should see some of the terrible locksmith work I see daily!!!