Not too long ago I wrote a post asking how much people would charge a home owner for one of our high end PVCu engineered doors. You can catch up with that post and the results of the poll I included here.

It got people talking, which is the whole point of these posts I guess. But it was also suggested to me that I do a similar poll and post for composite doors. Hence, this post.

How much?

I shall use one of our installed composite doors as an example. This one to be specific:

Credit: B & P Windows

This is a Solidor composite door, Ludlow 2 style with top light. The frames are smooth White with a Painswick on White wood grain door slab. Victorian etched glass design to door with sandblasted top light unit with clear house number. Complete with Chrome premium style door knocker.

The home owner was very happy with it. They spent a fair amount of time going through colour and design options, but was well worth the time if you ask me.

Like the last poll, I shall reveal what we charged for this door in a later post. For now, I want to know what you would charge a home owner for this door.

For clarity, we’re talking about this door fully fitted and inclusive of VAT.

Here’s the poll. You know what to do…

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The wider price debate

It looks as though our products to home owners are going to be going up in price whether we like it or not. There is set to be a wave if substantial price increases heading our way from all parts of the industry fairly soon. We can’t all take that on the chin, so we’re going to need to pass it down to the home owner to some degree.

The last post did get people talking about what we feel we should be charging for our products. It is clear there are very differing opinions on what we should be charging for things like doors to home owners.

With margins being squeezed and cost prices going north, my own personal view is that we shouldn’t be shy at charging a solid, fair price. No undercutting, no discounting, no promising to beat the other guy’s price. All this leads to a race to the bottom where margins don’t exist and the fight to make any money at all is a lost one.

In my opinion, the door above should not be going for anything less than £1500 as a minimum. The material cost that goes into these sorts of doors is substantial. Add to that costs for installation, sales person’s wage, fixings, VAT etc, then you can see how costs start to add up before profit margins are even added in. You’ve got to make a margin on every single product you sell, and a good one at that.

The way to make margin is simple: sell your product on it’s quality, build and your company customer service. The minute you enter a price battle between competitors or with the home owner, you can kiss that margin away. Price goes up? Pass some of that on. In my experience most home owners are prepared to pay more if they believe they are getting the quality that justifies the price.

As always, your thoughts on this are more than welcome via the comments section below.

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