We’re now in the penultimate months of the year. Time really has zipped by this year. Halloween was yesterday, Bonfire Night is only a few nights away, then all attention will turn to Christmas and New Year. Didn’t seem that long ago since the schools broke up for their summer holidays. But there’s nothing we can do about that, other than to take a quick look back at the month just gone in the world of windows.
Full steam ahead
Don’t know about you, but business didn’t really dip all that much in October. Usually this time of year can see a bit of a drop in the general buzz around the industry. Sales can sometimes slow, leads can crop and you get that sense home owners are powering down for the winter and the thoughts of changing their windows and doors are leaving.
Not this time. October for us, and it seems many of you out there, was as busy as any other month. In fact personally I had one of my own best months on the sales front all year, so no complaints from me!
I’ve also been seeing an increasing number of tweets saying that installers are now booking in work for the end of January. An amazing turnaround when you think about how just a few short years ago the industry was being crippled by a recession that in the end claimed an estimated 4000 companies.
Back to now, and a healthy proportion of the industry’s installers and fabricators will probably tell you that 2015 has been a good year. But that 2016 is going to be a tough one.
DGB stuff
For this site, October has been a historic one.
At the beginning of the month it broke it’s all time visitor record, beating 2014’s total with almost ten weeks to spare. The, as the end of the month neared, it broke it’s all time unique visitor record. These two very important stats demonstrate how far the site has come, and I’d like to think that DGB has become one of the most read industry sites by people who work within the industry.
Also, I was very happy to announce that FIT Show 2016 came on board as an advertiser. This was a great one for me to be able to announce as the exhibition has quickly become a respected show, and to have their banner and articles right here is fantastic. I hope that the FIT Show is happy to be on DGB as well!
Big business
Also during October, we saw another big industry take over. And this one was a meaty one.
The well known Roto Frank AG took over the Deventer Group, global construction supplier specialists. The figures for the deal were not announced, but the Deventer Group turned over 641m euros during 2014, and the deal was paid for entirely by Roto Frank, without any outside funding. So some indications there of the sums of money involved.
Penultimate thoughts
We’re now into November. As things stand right now, I can’t see much of a slowdown in business just yet. It’s fair to say October was a strong one, and the signs coming into a new month indicate that business activity will remain healthy for a few more weeks yet.
When December comes though, you can expect the seasonal fall off a cliff when leads will dry up, sales will slow and home owners focus on fighting in the shops for the last presents instead of new windows and doors.
