By Danny Williams, managing director, Pioneer Trading.

In general, the various press releases appearing in the window and door media issued by firms that either use data as part of their offer such as management or sales systems, or offering data in the form of market research reports, usually amount to very little.

That’s usually because they either cannot be too specific because they are using their clients’ data and will get in the brown stuff if they get too specific; or in the case of the market research, they won’t give too much away because they want you to part with your hard-earned and buy the report.

I understand this but the headlines of the releases that appear in the press get you all moist, and then offer, well, very little actually. However, in producing their ‘Barometer’ that appears elsewhere in this impressive organ, Business Pilot has highlighted a trend for which Neil Cooper Smith, their senior analyst, says the statistics they gather suggest a change in buying behaviour amongst homeowners.

He says: “Instead of visiting multiple window companies, homeowners are conducting more research before they approach the market. They decide what they want, who they want it from, and then seek fewer quotes.”

My response to this is that whilst this is a rare pearl of wisdom from this source, Mr Cooper-Smith’s stats are telling us what we have known for some time, that today’s homeowners are considerably better informed than they were even five years ago, when homeowners locked away by Covid and staring at the walls – and windows – decided to find out for themselves just what they needed to make their homes beautiful again.

They – all of us – got smarter with every major purchase that we made, and we are very much in that groove now.

Retail marketeers have to be smarter than ever and use the tools that are available to all of us these days, including the various platforms that even us oldies use as a matter of course, if not always understanding the tech behind them.

But I do fear if that trend might not cast the smaller firms further adrift, driving them towards the catch-all cop out of heavy discounting to secure a sale, rather than gearing up and adapting their approach. Much of this will also be down to age, I suspect, with the older installers throwing up their hands in bewilderment whilst the young guns embrace social media and digital marketing with ease.

To do nothing is not an option: rather than sticking their heads in the ground, retail installers must adapt. But this has always been the case and there will always be those that can’t be arsed to change.

To be honest I could go through my customer list and circle those that I believe will adapt and those that will pull the covers over and carry on as usual. In that sense, nothing really changes.

UK house prices on the rise again…order books at the ready!

According to the Rics UK Residential Survey for September, house prices are growing overall at a national level for the first time in two years. So, homeowners will be rushing to replace their windows buoyed by a newfound confidence that the value of their pride and joy will once again grow faster than the debts they pile up in the meantime.

Sadly not. Whilst many enjoyed the calm following the election storm, happy for an end to the backbiting and BS that spewed forth from every political orifice, the advent of the new government has failed to stir any enthusiasm whatsoever from the British people. Whilst the Tories achieved a destruction of UK society that our enemies could only dream of, even this early on I am chilled at the ineptitude of the new Labour government.

Conclusion? They are all a bunch of self-serving idiots. And any hope that we may have had as an industry of stability in the market, let alone growth, is as distant as it ever was. We, as an industry, must get off our collective backslides and stoke the fire, with innovation, creative marketing and good old fashioned selling!

Unless of course there is another pandemic….