It’s hard to believe that we’re into November now. I’m not sure where the year has gone. I know that we have all been very busy, and the busier we are the quicker time seems to fly by.
As we all start looking towards the end of the year and the well earned Christmas break, it’s time to take a look back at the big stories in the UK window and door industry in the month of October, and of course give you my usual breakdown in performance of this old site too.
Christmas rush gains traction
I have noticed a very distinct pickup in business during October at our place. Leads were very healthy and so were sales. In fact we had one of our best months of the year in October. The big running theme with our customers was the need to get things bought and installed before Christmas. To be fair this began in September but it really did step up a gear last month.
Naturally, this puts pressure on installers and indeed fabricators to be able to service all this business coming up. Up to press, we are managing well, but we only have a couple of working weeks left to fill per fitting crew and then that’s it for 2017. We’ll be booking into the New Year after that.
From my usual conversations and anecdotal evidence that I pick up, for many our scenario is their scenario. The pre-Christmas dash to get windows and doors installed appears to be in full swing for many. I am already seeing tweets from quite a few installers saying that they are now full for this year and are booking into the New Year. That is great news, if true, and shows that despite recent reports of a slowdown in the industry, there are areas where companies continue to do well and appear to be growing strongly.
In my experience most Novembers are a tad manic, especially as we near the end of the month and manufacturing deadlines start to close in. Home owners begin to rush and become more agitated as more and more get told that they have left it too late and will have to wait until the New Year. Always a fun period for installers. Then December comes and it generally goes very quiet very quickly. I don’t often mind that, it gives me a chance to catch up on other things and start to relax a bit.
Fairly quiet news month
September was perhaps the most busy month in terms of news flow and the magnitude of the stories being played out. October was totally the opposite. No major mergers and acquisitions to speak of. No bankruptcies. It felt like a month where the industry just got it’s head down and did some work.
That being said, there were a few subjects of note to talk about during October. Insight Data released their latest industry report, which although gave us no jaw dropping surprises, did shed some light on some key areas in which the industry was changing very quickly. You can catch up on one of those posts here.
At the start of October the voting lists for the 2017 National Fenestration Awards were announced. It was the biggest one yet, with a record 299 nominations cast. There are too many great people and companies to mention in this post, but if you click here you can go to the NFA page where all the categories, voting lists and voting forms are.
One subject that continued to gain traction throughout the month of October was the guest post published by Colin Torley of the Saveheat Group. He has taken on the subject of heritage glazing and non-compliant IGUs. The issue has grown since the original article was published which you can catch up on here. It’s a serious issue that continues to plague the industry in a big way, perhaps bigger than some people appreciate.
How DGB did
As always, I give you a run down on how this website performed during the past month. Despite a slower news month, DGB still managed to post pretty impressive traffic stats. Take a look at the infographic…
I will be honest, I suffered some pretty major burnout during October. My motivation suffered quite a bit, and I wasn’t always best pleased with the quality of my writing and stories. I also spent the very end of the month in London on a short break, so I took time away from promotion of the site for those few days as well.
Despite that, the site still managed to post pretty impressive growth compared to October of last year. What it has done is propel me to reaching my own yearly targets for the major traffic metrics comfortably before the end of the year. It is likely that I will reach my page views and visitor goals by the end of November, and my unique visitors goal in the last third of December. So one more good solid month of traffic then I’m set.
Top 5 most read posts
This is a list of the top five most read posts published on DGB in October
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Guest Post: Breaking The Law With Heritage Glazing?
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Those Out For A Pound Of Flesh
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Enough Is Enough. Time For Prosecutions
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The Window Industry Is Getting Smaller In A Lot Of Areas
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How Long Can 70mm Profiles Dominate?
Looking forward to November
As I mentioned at the start, November should see the traditional mad dash from home owners to get their last minute window and door purchases installed and ready for Christmas. Installers will become stressed. Fabricators will be under increased pressure to eek out every single order by their deadlines. It should be a fun old time.
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