There are those, including myself, that believe 2016 could be the year that triple glazing finally breaks into the industry in some serious manner.
At our place, after an initial strong interest in triple glazing from home owners in the first couple of months, that interest has somewhat dropped off. Not for want of trying. We make it very obvious that we do it. Yet, it still doesn’t peak the interest of most home owners.
Many will have noticed that to encourage interest in triple glazing, installers have been using discounts or sales to pull in the leads. Is this the right tactic though?
New Anglian advert
Following that trend, Anglian have a new TV advert out. I’d love to show you on here however I cannot find it on YouTube yet. It may be a bit too new, though if I find it I’ll update this post and put it here.
Anyway, the advert, alongside their triple glazed section of their website, they are offering triple glazing at 55% off. We all know that this 55% will have been added before it is taken back off again, along with a lot of other “sales” bundled in. But that debate is for another day. For me, it’s the mere fact that triple glazing is having to be discounted in order to generate the interest.
When triple glazing first arrived, I think many of us believed that perhaps this was the product to restore profit margins. A product that we didn’t have to offer discounts on. The true premium product that could restore a bit of credibility to our industry. Wishing for a bit too much? Probably.
The fact is that triple glazing has not generated the public interest as much as we had hoped. It’s doing well in pockets in certain parts of the country, but certainly not on a widespread and sustained scale. Companies, both large and small, have invested great amounts of money and time into making triple glazing work. The industry needs to get this new market going to not only pay for the investment given to it, but to then help build profits.
The right tactics?
I often wonder though if discounting now is creating a rod for our own backs. Everyone knows that it’s much harder to raise prices from a low point to a higher. It’s easier to lower them from a high point. If the public become conditioned to believe that triple glazing is this premium product that comes with a “value” price, what wriggle room do we have as an industry to earn a decent margin from it?
I would still like to see triple glazing sold as the next generation of premium window products, just not at hugely inflated discounts like 55%. I would like to see it being advertised and sold on it’s merits and qualities. This is a product that needs to be built up, not knocked down by gimmicks and discounts.
I may be own my own here. I know that there are many that will believe this product has to be boosted by such means as sales and discounts. But, once you set a precedent, it’s often very difficult to change course.
