• Polished chrome
  • Satin chrome
  • Brushed chrome
  • Pewter
  • Dark chrome
  • Bright chrome
  • Gothic pewter
  • Stainless steel

Might seem a funny way to start one of my blog posts, but I’m trying to make a point. The list above are all the options that I could think of off the top of my head that covers just the silvery and chrome finishes on window and door hardware right now. I am certain there are more but I just can’t remember them all.

And that there ladies and gents is my point. The amount of choice has gone absolutely mad! I am all for diversification but I think we may have gone too far!

In the race to get more options out there than anyone else, I think the industry has run away with itself a little bit. At the business I work for, we have three main suppliers; one for composite doors, one for timber-alternative and one for our core business which are standard windows and doors. We all sat down the other day and just looked back at the choice on offer from all three suppliers and we came to the conclusion that there is now no possible way we could ever learn from memory what now was possible from each of them.

When I first started I could have told you pretty much every possible product option from our suppliers. Now, you’ll be lucky if I could tell you half. And herein lies the problem. I do believe that there is now so much choice from suppliers that it is making the jobs of sales staff and ordering processors a great deal more difficult.

I think that whilst product options have been brought out, there hasn’t been much of a critical process to really assess their requirement within the industry portfolio. To make matters worse, the lines between what different suppliers can now offer is blurring very quickly.

Clarity is key in this industry. If the sales force aren’t sure exactly who is able to offer what and in what configuration, then it gets very difficult to sell with a clear mind. I know this from personal experience. It is sometimes difficult to recall, for example, which suppliers do certain colours as standard and which ones have to be sprayed.

There will be some that will say that sales staff, including me, should just do a better job, stop complaining and get  on with it. But in all truth, there is just way too much choice out there now. Not only does more choice increase the risk of mistakes happening in the background, but it does sometimes slow the selling process down.

It’s great to be able to show customers in our showroom exactly everything we do now. But what I often see now are people taking far longer to decide what they really want due to their quotes having half a dozen different options whereas previously there may only have been half that amount.

Again, this in the end is a good thing but it is a fairly irritating bi-product of hyperactive R&D departments.

Maybe it’s just me and my tiny northern brain just struggles to compute the gazillion options that are out there now. But I do think they manufacturers could help out a little by streamlining their product portfolios a bit and showcasing the various options as simply and as clearly as possible.

I’d love to know what your thoughts on this are. Is there too much choice now? Are the lines between different products blurring too much? Do we need even more choice? Please leave comments below as always.