Renegade Conservatory Guy

Double Glazing - The Hard Sell- Part 1
The second instalment of the industry debate has been released by the Glazine and to be honest - there’s some good stuff discussed.

Dave Ruzicka, from Sash UK, seems to be speaking a lot of sense. He talks about the pressure on those at the coalface, and he should know being based in Barnsley:

I looked at a window the other day - I was going to bring the details here - and it was a fabricator that’s been in business probably about 20 years. He’d produced a quotation for a trade guy to go and fit these for a consumer. There were five windows and a French door or two, residential doors. He was selling that - bearing in mind that this is one of the most technically advanced secure products that you can buy today - at £729 plus VAT. The guy said to me, “If you can beat that price, you can have the deal” and I said, “I don’t want the deal, there’s nothing to do a deal on”. So, when I got back I took my costs; took all labour out of it and I just looked at material costs. There was £96 between my material costs and what he sold it for. That’s the industry. We can all talk about sustainability, u-values and what have you: it’s a load of bollocks because I’m telling you out on that coalface, for me, unfortunately, that’s our industry. £96 and he’s got to manufacture that, make profit out of it and invest? That’s the sad thing about it.

The problem is the end user does not see the value in uPVC windows anymore. Dave goes on to state:

Twenty years ago you were sold the idea of what PVC would bring to you thermally, no maintenance, secure. Today, I don’t think anybody sells that product any more. We don’t sell it. You walk into a brand new house today and the consumer will look at bathrooms, kitchens, the flooring, timber floors that they have now because most of them don’t bother putting carpets down any more. Who looks at the windows? Nobody. Because it’s got no value to it; as an industry it’s got no value.

The problem we have is that the industry is in decline, and the view in many parts of the industry is to cut the selling price, buy the work, and hopefully things will be OK in the future. We then have serious problems with our reputation as I mentioned in my previous post. Would you want a double glazing salesman in your house?

I found this video on YouTube today which gives an insight into society’s view about the double glazing salesman. The director of the video states:

A coked-up, sex-crazed, double glazing salesman (Craig Fairbrass) pays a visit to a couple (Karl Howman and Chrissie Cotterill) one night and tries to sell them something they don’t want, and gets more than he bargained for…

This ’salesman’ isn’t cut price at £26,000+ for a house full of windows - quite the opposite. This is the Safestyle UK way of selling - quote a ridiculously high price for the windows, then knock off 55%, and then discount until you get the work. Then start quoting the price in terms of a price of milk per day, or a pint of beer.

Mike Rigby - you’re absolutely right - we need to change perceptions, and sooner, rather than later.

I await the Part 2 of ‘the Hard Sell’, but more importantly the next instalment of the great industry debate, and hope the discussion turns from talking about perceptions to a solution for changing perceptions.