Boost your margins by 40% with glass

Retailers could add in excess of 40% to their margins on each and every bifold door sale, simply by upselling IGUs, Cornwall Glass Manufacturing has said.

Specialising in the production of large and oversized IGUs, in addition to standard units, the trade manufacturer said on an average three-leaf bifold this could equate to as much as £200 per unit, or £600 on each door sold, simply by upselling to a solar control or security specification.

Angus Herdman, technical director at Cornwall Glass Manufacturing, said: “Retail businesses have a tendency to sell on price, because their competitors do. That doesn’t help anyone.

“The end user may get an install that falls short of their expectations, or which makes a room more or less unusable in the summer because of solar gain.

“And installers miss out on an opportunity to build in more margin by upselling to a higher performance glass.

“When you’re talking a missed opportunity to add £200 a unit on each and every bifold or inline sliding door your selling, that’s a lot of margin lost to your bottom line.”

Cornwall Glass Manufacturing supplies a wide range of solar control options. This includes Saint Gobain SKN176. It delivers a g-value of 0.37 combined with a U-value of 1W/m²K on a 16mm cavity, doing so while still achieving light transmittance of 70%.

“Compared to a standard IGU unit, you can reduce solar gain by 70%,” Angus said. “That’s something you’re going to feel, and if it’s explained to homeowners in the right way, it’s something that many will be prepared to pay a little more for.”

He argues that opportunities to upsell to acoustic or security units are also being missed.

Cornwall Glass Manufacturing’s offer is built around Stadip Silence from Saint Gobain.

“Solar control, acoustic glass – these are some big opportunities to upsell to a better product and add margin,” Angus said. “It also seems crazy to me that as an industry we’ll also supply a security laminate into new-build because legislation tells us we have to, when we don’t promote it in the replacement market.”

To this end, Cornwall Glass Manufacturing is offering free training sessions on how to sell glass effectively into retail. This includes attending pitches with customers, to support the training of sales teams.