Words escape me as to how much I hate this sort of thing!
@NigelGrantUpvc posted this image on Twitter earlier on, and it sums up everything that frustrates me about this industry! I think it frustrated quite a lot of you who live in the Blackburn area too!
Providing I’m reading the advert correctly, this company is offering 5 PVC windows AND a free PVC door (depending on where you live) for £1595?! To put this into perspective, a proper high quality PVC door, like one of the engineered (crucifix) ones I sell a lot of, goes for around £1200-£1400 with triple glazed bevels and the best in terms of locks and reinforcement.
This advert sums up exactly what is bad about our industry. There are too many companies going for totally unrealistic promotions which drive down prices around their area as their rivals simply cannot match such a stupidly low price. I will argue until I am blue in the face that at £1595 for five windows and two doors there won’t be a penny of profit in that job. I would welcome the company above to come on here and prove me wrong, though I doubt it!
I really do feel for those businesses over in Blackburn having to have competition like this. Stupid tactics like this always seem to rub off on all the other double glazing companies in the area and I’m pretty sure that the other geniunely good companies in the Blackburn area don’t want to be put in the same pot as these guys.
Forcing down prices, creating dangerously low promotions which are selling consumers false promises is very damaging. How can £1595 give you five high quality windows and a high security PVCu door? It can’t. It never will. Yet customers think they will be getting some sort decent quality at the very least.
I’m sure a few of you will have an opinion on the above!
Makes my blood boil. It’s totally pointless. No point being a busy fool. £2400 at best and really tight margins.
Has to be 600 on the fitting.So a grand for 5 windows an a door.Door must cost 2 hundred.So 800 for 5 windows.Must be top quality lol.Seriously is it worth doing after the fixings trims and silicone are taken into account and the dreaded taxes.I think not.
Sounds like high time the industry started getting the true price of high performance, totally secure products in the public domain. If a high security door properly installed costs £1000 and Mr & Mrs Homeowner know this, they won’t look twice at adverts like the one above. In my experience, in general a window is a window to most would be customers. They have to take at face value what the sales person is telling them. If their expectations are that for their front door alone the price will be over £1000 it will put things onto some kind of… Read more »
Good point Nigel. The one thing that has frustrated me is that other purchases like a car, white goods, electronics etc have moved along with inflation over the years. You pay more for a family car now than you did ten years ago. Yet, thanks to our industry’s ridiculous attitude to pricing, a house full of windows and doors DOES cost the same as it does ten years ago. Meaning little or no margins left in jobs. If, like you said, the customer’s expectations are for doors to be sold at at least £1000, it might put things in to… Read more »
Our local papers (Glasgow) at the weekend are full of similar ads, possibly not as low as this which is actually ridiculous but I doubt that the customer actually pays that price in the end. I’m sure that when they sign up there will be “extras” added on to bring it up. We had a customer a couple of months ago who had gone to such a company and left fuming because it turned out that the windows actually counted by frame and not by the window opening. So for example, a large window, say with two side casements with… Read more »
Thanks for your comment Sharon. Yes, I am sure that there will be plenty of added extras required and so many loopholes with that deal that it’s probably impossible to get that deal anyway. I think the reason why everyone has been angered by this though is the advert itself. It portrays our industry as a gimmick, cheap and cheerful and very low quality. Something that non of us in the industry wants to be.
Hopefully, this company will be gone sooner rather than later! How is business up in Glasgow by the way?
DGB
Just back from a bank holiday in the Lake District where I saw that strange yellow object that I believe is called the “sun”…amazing! Glasgow is probably much the same as elsewhere outside of London I suspect. Things are steady but having to work very very hard to secure jobs but I only came into the industry a couple of years ago when the recession hit so I’m used to it! I would say that quite a few companies have closed their doors. Every other week, reps will tell us that so and so has gone, or closed shop etc….but… Read more »
You should not be shocked by this. I reckon I get one leaflet a week through my door from differing companies pretty much with the stupid offers. The industries cutting its own throat. Also check the website out, the logo looks very much like the Anglian knight…
Grounds for Anglian to get legal? Thanks for your comment Chadders. I don’t think people are shocked, I just think people’s patience for companies like this one are running out. Like you said, the industry is cutting it’s own throat and it’s businesses like the one above who are doing it. The sooner they go the better, and I’m sure many will agree, especially in Blackburn!
Thanks for your comment!
Just a way of getting the phone ringing… like the window supermarket flyers; says any window for £99, then you add your openers, transoms, trickle vents etc. This is a really good way of getting loads of sh*t quality leads! :)
I worked for 6years for a leeds company with price lead advertising and its all about up selling And additional extras to get more money and that’s when your sales skills come in its the same as help link saying you can get a new boiler fitted for£17 a month it get the phone ringing and works companies who don’t offer discounts I feel there order takers
I Cannot believe what I’ve just seen, i pride myself on the standards of my company and its ethics, for one pallet of windows (usually 10 units) to get delivered from Austria to my warehouse in Rosyth would cost almost as much as that entire offer. Why would you sell that low, it makes no sense, all your doing is cheapening the product that your selling, and absolutely killing the industry around you! My average project for a range of Triple Glazed Aluminium Clad windows with a U Value of 0.9 (isn) maybe 12 units and a couple of nice… Read more »
We live in a crazy world, when a company can place adverts like this.
It is just misleading the public and gives a great industry a bad reputation.
With all the regulations CE marking, energy rated units, I.B.Guarantees, fensa, certas etc that we now have to work with, this is just a joke.
We all know there will be extra’s added to the cost, and the quality of this type of lead is always going to be poor, but this should disgust any sensible company in our industry
Know exactly how you feel I get this as well quite a lot as I am a locksmith it is on a smaller scale but to the same effect,it s the way things are as we all know,it amazes me as how people do the jobs for the price they quote but everyone has for staff,rent,rates,and that’s just for premises,then there is rent or mortgage at home,food,gas,electricity,to me that is why people do this just to survive,I know as everyone else it is not correct to do this,but these companies know that there won t be a surge of companies,offering… Read more »